Division  JJZ  _ 

BX  4700  .L7  S42  1923 
Sedgwick,  Henry  Dwight,  186: 
-1957. 

Ignatius  Loyola 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


« 


https://archive.org/details/ignatiusloyolaat00sedg_0 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Books  by 

HENRY  DWIGHT  SEDGWICK 

Pro  Vita  Monastica 

Marcus  Aurelius 

Dante 

An  Apology  for  Old  Maids  and  Other  Essays 

Italy  in  the  Thirteenth  Century 

A  Short  History  of  Italy 

Life  of  Francis  Parkman 

The  New  American  Type  and  Other  Essays 

Essays  on  Great  Writers 

Life  of  Father  Hecker 

Life  of  Samuel  de  Champlain 

A  Letter  of  Captain  Cuellar 

IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


An  Attempt  at  an  Impartial  Biography 


BY 


HENRY  DWIGHT  SEDGWICK/ 


“Biography,  the  most  interesting  perhaps  of  every  species  of 
composition,  loses  all  its  interest  with  me,  when  the  shades  and 
lights  of  the  principal  character  are  not  accurately  and  faith¬ 
fully  detailed;  ...  I  can  no  more  sympathize  with  a  mere 
eulogist,  than  I  can  with  a  ranting  hero  upon  the  stage.” 


Walter  Scott. 


gotfc 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1923 


All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OP  AMERICA 


Copyright,  1923, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  printed.  Published  October,  1923. 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  Yorfc,.  TJ.  S.  A. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface . vii 

CHAPTER 

I.  Boyhood  and  Youth  (1495-1521)  ....  1 

II.  Conversion  (1521) .  3 

III.  Self  Dedication . 24 

IV.  Manresa  (1522-1523) .  31 

V.  Pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  (1523-1524)  ...  40 

VI.  The  Reformation  and  Renaissance  ...  52 

VII.  Barcelona  (1524-1525) .  63 

VIII.  Alcala  (1526-1527) .  71 

IX.  Alcala  and  Salamanca  (1526-1527)  ...  85 

X.  At  the  University  of  Paris  (1528-1535)  .  .  95 

XI.  Lefevre,  Xavier  and  Lainez . 104 

XII.  Salmeron,  Rodriguez  and  Bobadilla  .  .  .  117 

XIII.  The  Spiritual  Exercises . 125 

XIV.  Loyola  and  the  Reformation  in  France 

(1528-1535) .  135 

XV.  The  Vow  at  Montmartre  and  New  Disciples 

(1534-1536) .  144 

XVI.  Back  in  Spain  (1535) .  151 

XVII.  Venice  (1536) .  160 

XVIII.  From  Venice  to  Rome  (1537-1538)  ....  176 

XIX.  Tribulations  (1538) .  188 

XX.  The  Charter  (1538-1540) .  202 

XXI.  The  Election  ;  the  Constitution  ....  212 


vi 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXII.  Missions  in  Italy  and  Ireland . 225 

XXIII.  Portugal . .  235 

XXIV.  Spain  and  France . .  244 

XXV.  At  the  Council  of  Trent . 253 

XXVI.  Francis  Xavier . 267 

XXVII.  Pierre  Lefevre . 283 

XXVIII.  Rome  in  Loyola’s  Time . .  .  295 

XXIX.  Ignatius  in  Rome  . 305 

XXX.  His  Character  .........  321^ 

XXXI.  His  Piety  . .  330 - 

XXXII.  Other  Traits . 339 

XXXIII.  Last  Days . .  351 

XXXIV.  Epilogue . 359 

Appendix . .  371 

Index  375 


PREFACE 


Another  biography  of  Ignatius  Loyola  requires,  perhaps, 
an  apology  or  justification;  if  so,  there  is  one,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  ready  to  hand.  In  the  fewest  possible  words  it  is 
this:  The  Society  of  Jesus  has  played  an  extraordinary 
role  in  the  world  during  the  last  four  centuries,  and  still 
plays  an  important  one;  that  Society  cannot  be  judged  with 
fairness  apart  from  a  knowledge  of  its  founder;  and  there 
is  not,  at  present,  any  adequate  biography  of  Loyola  in 
English;  therefore,  an  attempt,  in  the  light  of  recent 
scholarship,  to  tell  the  story  of  his  life  as  it  is  presented  in 
the  original  sources,  is  neither  superfluous  nor  presumptu¬ 
ous.  But  as  this  compendious  apology  cannot  embrace  all 
the  respects  that  make  Loyola  a  great  figure,  I  must  ask 
leave  to  enlarge  upon  it,  and  that  in  a  more  or  less  round¬ 
about  fashion. 

During  two  centuries  Spain  was  in  the  race  for  the  fore¬ 
most  position  in  Europe,  and  in  her  days  of  high  prosperity 
led  all  competitors.  If  one  were  to  make  a  list  of  the  half 
dozen  men  that  gave  to  Spain  her  strength  and  swiftness 
in  the  race  for  glory,  there  would  be  no  very  great  diver¬ 
gence  of  opinion,  except  in  so  far  as  the  chooser’s  taste  might 
lead  him  to  rank  war,  adventure,  art,  literature,  or  religion 
as  the  matter  of  chief  interest.  But  at  the  head  of  every 
discriminating  list  three  names  would  stand—Cervantes, 
Velasquez,  and  Ignatius  Loyola.  Don  Quixote  is  read 
wherever  European  books  are  read.  The  paintings  of 
Velasquez  make  the  Prado  one  of  the  chief  shrines  of  art, 
and  pictures,  over  which  critics  dispute  whether  they  may 
be  his  or  not,  are  treasured  by  the  great  galleries  in  Europe 
and  America.  Nevertheless,  lovers  of  art  who  make  a  pil¬ 
grimage  to  see  the  Surrender  of  Breda,  Las  Meninas,  or  the 
listless  face  of  Philip  IV,  are  to  be  reckoned  by  hundreds 
only,  and  readers  of  Don  Quixote  by  thousands  at  the  most, 


Vll 


PREFACE 


•  •  • 

Vlll 

but  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and  women,  not  only  of 
almost  every  nation  in  Europe,  but  also  of  every  race  and 
every  class  from  Paraguay  to  Ethiopia,  from  Ethiopia  to 
Japan,  have  had  their  lives  influenced  by  what  Ignatius 
Loyola  did. 

In  the  year  1538  this  little  Spaniard — he  stood  not  quite 
five  feet  one  and  three-quarter  inches — with  deep-set,  deep- 
seeing  eyes,  and  high,  smooth  brow,  trudged  barefoot, 
slightly  limping,  from  Venice  to  Rome,  and  petitioned  the 
Pope  to  bestow  upon  him  and  nine  other  soldiers  of  Christ 
leave  to  serve  their  God  and  their  neighbor  under  the  name 
of  the  Company  of  Jesus.  When  he  died  some  fifteen  years 
later,  these  soldiers  were  a  thousand  strong,  and  their  houses 
and  colleges,  like  castra  Romana,  held  fast  against  the  Prot¬ 
estant  aggression  in  Europe,  won  lost  provinces  back,  and 
were  spreading  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  far  and  wide  in 
Asia  and  America.  Two  generations  later  this  little 
Spaniard  was  proclaimed  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to 
have  been  one  of  that  small  band  of  holy  men,  called  Saints, 
through  whom  the  Spirit  of  God  has  wrought  marvelous 
things  for  their  fellows.  At  that  time  the  Jesuit  army 
numbered  over  13,000,  and  an  enumeration  of  its  provinces 
maps  out  great  regions  of  the  world — Lombardy,  Tuscany, 
Rome,  Sicily,  Aragon,  Castile,  Andalusia,  Portugal, 
Lithuania  and  Poland,  Austria,  Germany,  Bohemia,  Bel¬ 
gium,  Mexico,  Philippine  Islands,  Peru,  Paraguay,  and  so 
on,  to  the  number  of  thirty-two.  And  as  generations  rolled 
by,  through  the  pulpit,  the  confessional,  and  the  schools, 
the  Jesuits  came  near  to  dominate  secular  society.  They 
directed  the  education  of  the  upper  classes,  and  held  in 
subjection,  so  Protestants  thought,  the  consciences  of 
kings.  Lord  Macaulay’s  rhetorical  passage  concerning 
them  is  but  a  sober  and  moderate  statement:  “With  what 
vehemence,  with  what  policy,  with  what  exact  discipline, 
with  what  dauntless  courage,  with  what  self-denial,  with 
what  forgetfulness  of  the  dearest  private  ties,  with  what 
intense  and  stubborn  devotion  to  a  single  end,  with  what 
unscrupulous  laxity  and  versatility  in  the  choice  of  means, 
the  Jesuits  fought  the  battle  of  their  Church,  is  written  in 


PREFACE 


IX 


every  page  of  the  annals  of  Europe  during  several 
generations.”  And  Guizot  in  his  History  of  Civilization 
says:  “Ils  ont  eu  la  grandeur  de  la  pensee  et  la  grandeur  de 
la  volonte — Greatness  of  thought  and  greatness  of  will  has 
been  theirs.” 

The  greatness  of  the  Order  is  plainly  measured  by  the 
host  of  enemies  that  banded  together  to  pull  it  down.  And 
yet,  in  spite  of  all  its  enemies,  it  rose  again,  and  to-day  its 
colleges  and  schools  continue  to  maintain  and  propagate  the 
Holy  Catholic  Faith,  Apostolic  and  Roman,  in  every  quarter 
of  the  globe.  This  is  Ignatius’s  doing.  You  may  run  over 
the  whole  list  of  famous  Spaniards — whether  warriors, 
Charles  V,  Gonsalvo  de  Cordova,  Cortez,  Pizarro,  Alva;  or 
adventurers,  Yasco  Nunez  de  Balboa,  Ponce  de  Leon, 
Hernando  de  Soto;  or  men  of  letters,  Lope  de  Vega, 
Calderon,  Quevedo;  or  painters,  El  Greco,  Ribera,  Murillo, 
Zurbaran,  Goya;  or  saints,  Dominic,  Theresa,  John  of  the 
Cross,  Louis  of  Granada — and  you  will  find  that  none  have 
left  a  monument  comparable  to  the  Society  of  Jesus. 

Lord  Acton  calls  him  “that  extraordinary  man  in  whom 
the  Spirit  of  the  Catholic  Reaction  is  incorporated,”  and  the 
most  eminent  of  modern  Spanish  scholars,  Menendez  y 
Pelayo,  says,  “Ignatius  more  than  any  other  man  is  the 
living  embodiment  of  the  Spanish  spirit  in  its  golden  age.” 
In  this  aspect,  then,  as  the  representative  of  Spain  at  the 
time  of  her  glory,  Loyola  has  a  claim  on  our  general  interest. 

Second:  the  great  heritage  that  our  world  of  to-day  has 
received  from  Spain,  or,  perhaps  I  should  say — though  it  is 
all  one  so  far  as  the  Jesuits  are  concerned — from  the  Iberian 
peninsula,  is  the  civilization  of  South  America  ;  and  in  that 
civilization,  as  I  am  told,  the  Order  of  Jesus  has  been  the 
chief  individual  factor.  I  quote  from  a  very  recent  book 
by  a  French  scholar:  “The  greater  part  of  whatever  was 
good  and  useful  that  had  been  accomplished  for  the  civiliza¬ 
tion  of  South  America  [he  is  speaking  with  reference  to  the 
date  of  its  independence] — the  development  of  education, 
both  primary  and  higher,  the  progress  in  agriculture — was 
their  doing.  In  a  word,  the  material  and  moral  wellbeing 
of  South  America  had  been  wrought  by  the  Jesuits.” 


X 


PREFACE 


And,  again,  there  are  the  feats  of  the  Jesuits  in  North 
America,  Readers  of  Parkman  know  what  they  did  for  the 
civilization  of  Canada;  and  if  any  one  is  curious  as  to  the 
place  that  the  Society  occupies  in  the  United  States  to-day, 
he  has  but  to  visit  the  colleges  of  the  Jesuits  in  New  York, 
Boston,  Washington,  Worcester,  and  many  another  city,  or, 
if  he  prefer,  their  schools  and  churches,  scattered  all  over. 
The  originator  of  this  stupendous  achievement  offers  an 
interest  that  transcends  the  boundaries  of  kingdom  or 
church. 

And  one  word  here  as  to  his  personality.  Some  sentences 
in  Lord  Rosebery’s  estimate  of  Oliver  Cromwell  seem  to 
me  applicable  to  Ignatius  Loyola:  “He  was  a  practical 
mystic,  the  most  formidable  and  terrible  of  all  combinations. 
A  man  who  combines  inspiration  apparently  derived  .  .  . 
from  close  communion  with  the  supernatural  and  the 
celestial,  a  man  who  has  that  inspiration  and  adds  to  it  the 
energy  of  a  mighty  man  of  action,  such  a  man  as  that  lives 
in  communion  on  a  Sinai  of  his  own,  and  when  he  pleases 
to  come  down  to  this  world  below  seems  armed  with  no  less 
than  the  terrors  and  decrees  of  the  Almighty  Himself.” 

Having  such  a  character  and  such  an  achievement  to 
deal  with,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  the  biographies  of 
Loyola  should  be  marked  either  with  the  stamp  of  approba¬ 
tion  or  with  that  of  disapprobation,  and,  as  far  as  I  can  find 
out,  they  are  in  fact  so  marked.  There  are  said  to  have 
.been  written  more  than  two  hundred  biographies,  but  if 
indeed  there  ever  were  so  many,  scarce  a  dozen  are  of  any 
account,  and  such  as  there  are,  whether  of  account  or  not, 
may  be  divided  into  three  categories.  In  the  first  come  the 
biographies  written  by  Loyola’s  personal  disciples,  Polanco, 
Ribadeneira,  Lainez,  and  by  their  immediate  successors  who 
had  original  documents  under  their  eyes,  such  as  Orlandini 
and  Maffei,  with  whom  Bartoli  may  be  included,  although 
he  wrote  much  later.  These  lives  are  good,  but  hardly 
sufficient  to  satisfy  modern  taste  in  biography. 

In  the  second  category  I  include  all  the  subsequent 
books  on  Ignatius  written  during  some  three  hundred 
years,  a  long  period  in  which  passion  and  prejudice 


PREFACE 


xi 


prevented  men  from  writing  fairly.  Every  one  was 
a  partisan  either  on  one  side  or  the  other.  By  the 
act  of  canonization  Catholics  were  committed  to  eulogy; 
since  that  event  adverse  criticism  has  meant  disrespect 
to  the  Pope,  and  perhaps  to  higher  authority.  More¬ 
over,  during  the  proceedings  of  canonization  reports 
were  forthcoming  of  over  two  hundred  miracles  wrought 
by  Loyola's  intercession ;  and,  also,  memories  of  what 
had  happened  seventy  or  eighty  years  before  were  fished 
up  out  of  many  pools  of  local  tradition.  From  that 
time  until  the  present  generation  few  if  any  Catholics  have 
ventured  to  disregard  these  miracles  and  these  pious  tradi¬ 
tions.  On  the  other  hand,  Protestants,  and  Catholic 
partisans  of  the  forces  that  ultimately  caused  the  temporary 
suppression  of  the  Jesuits,  included  Loyola  in  the  belligerent 
dislike  which  they  felt  towards  the  Order  as  it  became  a 
hundred  or  two  hundred  years  after  his  death.  To  show 
their  state  of  mind,  I  will  cite  two  random  instances,  come 
upon  in  picking  up  various  books  on  the  subject.  In  a 
French  book  of  the  eighteenth  century  occurs  the  following 
passage,  “This  Society  has  a  plan,  framed  at  its  very  birth, 
to  do  away  entirely  with  the  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ,  to 
destroy  His  religion,  and  overturn  crowns  and  kingdoms,  in 
order  to  build  up  on  their  ruins  an  absolute  despotism”; 
and  a  Spanish  book,  written  as  late  as  1880,  has  this  title, 
“The  Jesuits — their  mode  of  life,  their  habits,  adulteries, 
assassinations,  regicides,  poisonings,  and  other  peccadillos 
committed  by  that  celebrated  Society.”  In  short,  from  1595 
to  near  1900,  I  repeat,  those  who  in  any  way  concerned 
themselves  with  the  founder  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  were 
not  able  to  see  clearly  on  account  of  passion  and  prejudice. 

Besides  this,  during  that  long  period,  there  was  more  or 
less  difficulty  of  access  to  the  original  sources.  Therefore, 
from  the  time  of  the  first  disciples  down  to  the  present, 
owing  to  bias  and  to  ignorance,  it  was  difficult,  or  rather 
virtually  impossible,  to  write  a  fair  and  accurate  biography 
of  Loyola. 

Since  1900  the  situation  has  completely  changed.  The 
odium  theologicum  has  died  away;  if  there  are  Catholics 


Xll 


PREFACE 


who  are  opposed  to  the  Society  of  Jesus,  they  are  temperate 
in  words,  or  mean  to  be,  and  Protestants  have  attained  to 
justice  and  to  appreciation,  or  nearly  so.  Fiery  partisan¬ 
ship  no  longer  distorts  this  ancient  history.  And  also  there 
is  now  no  excuse  left  for  ignorance  of  the  sources;  most  of 
these — biographies,  memoirs,  records,  letters,  and  so  forth, 
in  Latin,  Spanish,  Italian,  and  Portuguese — have  been  pub¬ 
lished  in  fifty  large  volumes;  moreover,  two  accomplished 
scholars  in  the  Society,  Father  Astrain  in  Spain,  and  Father 
Tacchi  Venturi  in  Italy,  are  publishing  long  histories  of  the 
Society  in  their  respective  countries,  and  each  has  recounted 
at  considerable  length  the  life  of  the  founder,  adhering 
closely  to  the  original  sources  already  known,  and  supple¬ 
menting  them  by  very  varied  information  which  they  have 
gathered  together  from  unprinted  documents  stored  in 
various  archives  in  Spain  and  Italy.  These  two  biog¬ 
raphies,  imbedded  in  the  history  of  the  Order,  may  serve  to 
represent  the  third  category,  that  of  fairness  and  modem 
scholarship.  A  French  biography  also  has  been  announced, 
and  may  be  out  already.  And  a  German  Protestant,  Dr. 
Heinrich  Bohmer,  has  published  Studien  zur  Geshichte  der 
Gesellschaft  Jesu.  European  scholarship  has  prepared  the 
way,  and  the  time  has  come,  therefore,  when  a  faithful 
biography  of  St.  Ignatius  can  be  written  in  English  without 
a  controversial  spirit,  and  at  no  greater  cost  than  a  certain 
amount  of  study. 

None  of  the  books  that  fall  in  this  third  category  have 
been  rendered  into  English.  Not  counting  translations  of 
some  books  that  belong  in  the  second  category,  and  brief 
sketches  in  encyclopedias  and  such,  there  is,  I  believe,  but 
one  original  biography  in  English,  and  that  is  Ignatius 
Loyola  by  Catherine  Stewart  Erskine,  Lady  Buchan 
(writing  under  the  name  of  Stewart  Rose),  published  in 
1870.  This  biographer  encountered  both  difficulties  here¬ 
tofore  mentioned — for  they  existed,  although  in  diminished 
force,  at  the  time  she  wrote — a  bias  to  eulogy  and  lack  of 
complete  access  to  original  sources.  I  say  hers  is  the  only 
English  biography,  because  that  by  Francis  Thompson,  the 
poet — Pegasus  hitched  to  the  plow — is  scarcely  more  than 


PREFACE 


xm 

an  abridgement,  a  briefer  retelling  in  his  own  sonorous 
prose,  of  Lady  Buchan’s  book,  and  the  short  lives,  such  as 
Father  J.  H.  Pollen’s,  are  rather  biographical  essays  than 
full  biographies. 

My  endeavor  has  been  to  narrate  Loyola’s  life  as,  aided 
by  the  works  of  the  scholars  to  whom  I  have  referred,  I 
find  it  in  the  original  sources,  although  not  without  com¬ 
ment  or  criticism,  nor  without  my  own  interpretation  upon 
such  episodes  as  seem  to  me  in  need  of  interpretation.  I 
have  also  tried  to  do  what  neither  Tacchi  Venturi  nor 
Astrain  has  done — for  it  lay  quite  outside  their  purposes — 
and  that  is,  to  provide  a  frame  of  contemporaneous  history 
in  which  to  set  the  picture.  I  believe  that  I  am  fairly 
free  from  religious  bias — although  no  one  knows  his  own 
deep  prejudices — and  in  telling  Loyola’s  story,  I  shall  be  as 
strictly  impartial  as  a  profound  admiration  for  this  heroic 
soldier  of  Jesus  will  permit. 


Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  May,  1923. 


H.  D.  S. 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


CHAPTER  I 

BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH  (1495-1521) 

Ignatius  Loyola  was  born  in  the  Basque  province  of  Gui- 
puscoa,  at  the  castle  of  Loyola,  not  far  from  the  little  town  of 
Azpeitia.  This  province  lies  between  the  Bay  of  Biscay  and 
what  was  at  that  time  the  Spanish  portion  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Navarre.  His  father,  Don  Beltran  Yanez  de  Onaz  y 
Loyola,  belonged  to  the  principal  nobility  of  the  province, 
and  was  of  kin  in  some  degree  to  a  great  nobleman,  Don 
Alonso  Manrique,  duke  of  Najera.  Don  Beltran  had  eight 
sons,  of  whom  Ignatius  was  the  youngest,  and  five  daughters. 
The  date  of  Loyola’s  birth  is  usually  given  as  1491;  how¬ 
ever,  for  reasons  set  forth  in  the  appendix,  I  incline  to  think 
that  1495  is  the  true  year.  He  was  baptized  Inigo  but  in 
manhood  took  the  name  Ignacio,  or  in  its  Latin  form  Igna¬ 
tius,  for  the  reason  that  it  was  more  generally  known,  and 
for  some  years  used  one  or  the  other  indiscriminately,  and 
then  finally  dropped  Inigo  entirely. 

Of  his  doings  during  boyhood  and  youth  few  facts  are 
known,  and  those  vaguely.  On  the  other  hand,  of  his  dis¬ 
position  and  general  behaviour  the  evidence  is  definite 
enough.  Late  in  life  he  dictated  to  one  of  his  disciples, 
Father  Luis  Gonzalez  de  Camara,  a  brief  memoir  of  his 
career,  in  which  all  he  says  concerning  his  youth  is,  that  it 
was  given  over  to  vanity,  adding,  in  explanation,  that  he 
entertained  a  “love  of  martial  exercises  and  a  vainglorious 
desire  for  fame.”  His  earliest  biographer,  Father  Polanco, 
another  of  his  disciples,  says:  “Like  other  young  men  bred 
in  court  to  a  military  life”  he  was  keenly  interested  in  sports 

l 


2 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


and  contests.  Father  Nadal,  also  a  disciple,  records  that 
Ignatius  “took  no  thought  of  religion  or  piety/'  and  Polanco 
adds  that  “he  was  free  in  making  love  to  women,"  an  accusa¬ 
tion  that  is  fully  borne  out  by  his  own  acknowledgment  after 
conversion.  The  morals  of  the  time  were  not  puritanical, 
and,  except  by  the  religious-minded,  sins  of  the  flesh  were 
deemed  very  venial.  The  gist  of  the  evidence  is  that  Loyola 
lightly  adopted  the  contemporary  standards  of  young  gentle¬ 
men  who  were  quite  free  from  any  thought  of  becoming 
saints. 

As  to  the  events  of  his  early  years  these  disciples  seem  to 
have  been  as  much  in  the  dark  as  we  are;  but  certain  details 
have  been  brought  to  light.  While  still  a  young  boy,  he  left 
his  father's  castle  and  went  to  live  in  the  town  of  Arevalo  in 
Old  Castile,  not  very  far  from  Salamanca.  An  important 
personage,  at  one  time  governor  of  Arevalo,  Don  Juan  Velaz¬ 
quez  de  Cuellar,  for  some  motive  that  is  not  apparent,  in¬ 
vited  his  friend  Don  Beltran  to  send  him  one  of  his  sons  that 
he  might  bring  him  up  in  his  house  like  a  child  of  his  own, 
proposing  to  procure  for  him  by  and  by  a  place  in  the  king's 
household.  The  offer  was  accepted;  Ignatius  was  selected 
and  sent.  He  lived  with  this  nobleman,  as  it  seems,  until 
the  latter’s  death,  though  perhaps  with  interruptions  and 
not  all  the  time  at  Arevalo.  There  is  no  satisfactory  evi¬ 
dence  that  Ignatius  was  ever  attendant  upon  the  king's 
court,  although  he  may  have  visited  it  in  the  train  of  Don 
Juan. 

It  has  been  repeated  often  that  Ignatius  in  his  youth  was 
very  wild,  and  it  is  true,  as  I  have  said,  that  according  to  his 
own  confession,  his  personal  morals  were  loose,  but  there  is 
no  evidence  of  this  beyond  what  he  himself  told  his  dis¬ 
ciples  ;  and  one  must  remember  that  it  is  customary  for  great 
saints,  who  in  their  serious  years  set  a  very  high  standard 
of  human  perfection,  to  see  the  irregularities  of  their  youth 
in  colors  far  blacker  than  they  look  to  less  scrupulous  eyes. 
There  is,  in  addition  to  his  self-accusation,  one  other  bit  of 
evidence  of  wild  oats.  This  evidence  is  found  in  some  docu¬ 
ments  of  an  incomplete  judicial  record  of  the  year  1515, 
when,  as  I  think,  Ignatius  was  in  his  twentieth  year.  Only 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


3 


the  accusation  is  given;  the  documents  on  behalf  of  the 
defendant  were  either  destroyed  or  lost.  What  is  left  of 
the  record  suggests  some  carnival  frolic,  an  escapade  such  as 
Prince  Hal  and  Poins  might  have  engaged  in  without  the 
least  smirch  upon  their  reputations,  certainly  no  worse  than 
the  foolish  frolic  of  many  a  young  soldier.  As  there  is  so 
little  information  concerning  his  youth,  I  will  quote  this 
record. 

It  appears  that  at  Azpeitia,  there  was  a  dispute  over  an 
ecclesiastical  benefice,  or  something  of  the  sort,  in  which  the 
Loyola  family  took  part.  On  Shrove  Tuesday  a  fracas  oc¬ 
curred.  Nothing  is  known  of  the  affair  beyond  the  accusa¬ 
tion  that  Ignatius  and  his  elder  brother,  Pedro  Lopez  de 
Loyola,  who  was  in  clerical  orders,  had  committed,  in  the 
language  of  the  prosecuting  attorney,  some  offense  “by 
night,  on  purpose,  with  fraud,  guile,  and  malice  prepense 
( sobre  habla  e  consejo).”  These  vituperative  epithets  were 
no  doubt  used  in  order  to  bring  the  misdemeanor  within  the 
language  of  some  criminal  statute.  Nothing  further  may  be 
reasonably  inferred  than  that  the  brothers  had  perhaps  car¬ 
ried  the  license  of  carnival  too  far,  and  that  in  consequence 
some  indignant  citizen  lodged  a  complaint  against  them.1 
Pedro  and  Ignatius  returned,  or  fled,  from  Azpeitia  to 
Navarre.  Thereupon  the  Corregidor  of  Guipuscoa,  a  sort  ■  _ 

of  high  sheriff,  demanded  of  the  authorities  in  Navarre  that 
the  two  should  be  delivered  up  to  him.  The  brothers  ob¬ 
tained  an  order  from  the  episcopal  court  in  Pamplona  en¬ 
joining  the  execution  of  the  Corregidor’s  writ  of  arrest,  on 
the  ground  that  they  were  both  clerks  and  not  subject  to 
secular  jurisdiction.  A  hearing  was  had  before  the  ecclesi¬ 
astical  judge  and  a  brief  submitted  on  behalf  of  the  Corregi¬ 
dor.  The  case  against  Pedro  Lopez  stood  on  a  different 
footing  from  that  against  Ignatius;  the  elder  brother  was 
admittedly  in  clerical  orders,  and  therefore  some  offense 
sufficiently  heinous  to  deprive  the  ecclesiastical  court  of 
jurisdiction  had  to  be  alleged;  for  this  reason,  I  surmise, 

1  Possibly  a  story,  told  years  afterwards,  how  Ignatius  had  drawn  his 
sword  on  a  peaceable  citizen  may  represent  the  view  of  the  other  party 
to  the  quarrel. 


4 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


the  pleader  inserted  those  vituperative  words,  “with  fraud, 
guile,  and  malice  prepense.”  As  to  Ignatius,  it  was  only 
necessary  to  show  that  he  was  not  in  orders,  or  else,  for 
some  reason,  was  not  in  a  position  to  claim  benefit  of  clergy. 
The  Corregidor’s  position  was  this:  Two  bulls  of  Pope 
Alexander  VI  provided  that  no  clerk  should  be  entitled  to 
claim  benefit  of  clergy  unless  he  had  worn  a  tonsure  and  a 
recognized  clerical  garb  for  the  period  of  four  months  prior 
to  the  commission  of  the  offense.  A  local  synod  had  gone 
further  and  required  a  clerk  to  be  duly  registered,  and  had 
enacted  that  the  tonsure  must  be  at  least  the  size  of  a 
penny  ( una  tarja),  that  the  clerk’s  hair  must  be  cut  so  that 
his  ears  or  a  part  of  them  showed,  that  his  cloak  should  be 
of  a  sober  hue,  free  from  ornament,  and  reach  to  within 
about  six  inches  from  the  ground,  that  his  cap  should  not  be 
dyed,  etc.,  etc.  Ignatius,  the  Corregidor  alleged,  did  not 
come  within  these  provisions.  His  name  was  not  on  the 
register;  he  had  no  tonsure;  his  hair  hung  down  thick  about 
his  shoulders;  his  cap  was  of  a  gay  color;  he  wore  no 
cassock,  but  went  about  with  corselet,  gorget,  crossbow, 
arrows,  and  all  sorts  of  weapons;  in  short,  “he  displayed 
the  insignia,  not  of  celestial,  but  of  earthly  soldiery.”  And 
all  this  he  had  done  continuously  for  years.  The  record 
terminates  abruptly  at  this  point.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  Ignatius,  though  he  may  have  received  the  tonsure 
when  a  child,  was  a  soldier  and  not  a  clerk;  but  as  no 
enemy  has  ever  unearthed  any  further  evidence  of  the 
alleged  offense,  and  no  friend  has  ever  thought  it  worth 
while  to  suppress  these  documents,  one  may  fairly  conclude 
that  ill  will  between  factions  in  Azpeitia  or  jealousy  be¬ 
tween  the  secular  and  ecclesiastical  tribunals  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  the  prosecution. 

The  record,  however,  establishes  the  fact  that  Ignatius 
began  his  military  life  probably  as  early  as  1511  or  1512, 
when  he  was  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  old,  and  further, 
since  the  scene  of  the  episode  is  laid  in  Azpeitia  and  Pam¬ 
plona,  that  he  was  no  longer  a  resident  member  of  Don 
Juan  Velazquez’s  household,  for  that  nobleman  was  in  those 
years  royal  governor  of  Arevalo.  Nevertheless,  some  tie 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


5 


must  have  continued  to  exist  between  them,  ior  upon  Don 
Juan’s  death  in  1517,  at  which  time  it  became  necessary  for 
Ignatius  to  shift  for  himself,  his  widow,  evidently  in  ful¬ 
fillment  of  her  husband’s  promise  to  Don  Beltran  to  bring 
up  Ignatius  as  if  he  were  his  own  child,  fitted  the  young 
man  out  with  two  horses  and  a  purse  of  five  hundred  crowns. 
So  provided  for,  Ignatius  went  to  Pamplona  and  took  serv-  * 
ice  with  the  duke  of  Najera,  his  kinsman,  who  had  recently 
been  appointed  viceroy  of  Navarre.  In  the  duke’s  service 
Ignatius  seems  to  have  showed  character  and  spirit,  not 
only  willingness  to  undertake  a  difficult  task,  but  also  both 
good  sense  in  laying  plans  and  perseverance  in  execution, 
and,  in  spite  of  little  experience,  to  have  given  proof,  even 
then,  of  his  rare  skill  in  handling  men.  On  one  occasion 
he  was  despatched  to  settle  some  quarrels  in  Guipuscoa; 
this  task  he  accomplished  to  the  satisfaction  of  both  parties 
and  thereby  won  special  approbation.  On  another,  he 
showed  disinterestedness.  The  duke’s  soldiers  captured 
the  city  of  Najera,  which  had  revolted;  Ignatius  was  among 
the  foremost  in  the  fight,  but  refused  to  accept  any  share 
of  the  booty. 

So  much  for  the  facts  of  Loyola’s  life  prior  to  his  conver¬ 
sion  that  have  any  trustworthy  historical  support. 

As  we  have  now  come  to  the  time  when  both  Ignatius 
begins  his  great  career  and  Spain  hers,  it  may  not  be  inap¬ 
propriate  to  see  how  the  nation,  entering  into  European 
affairs,  like  an  athlete  on  his  mark  starting  to  run  a  race, 
was  judged  by  contemporaries.  I  will  quote  from  some 
distinguished  Italian  observers,  and  first  Lucio  Marineo,  a 
lover  of  learning  (about  1535) : 

The  Spaniards  delight  greatly  in  the  use  of  weapons,  and 
the  blast  of  trumpets  in  battle  stirs  them  to  the  quick.  It 
is  my  opinion,  and  that  of  many  others,  that  they  surpass 
all  other  nations  in  the  art  of  war,  not  only  by  reason  of 
bodily  strength  and  agility,  and  heroism,  and  endurance  of 
work,  hunger  and  other  necessary  toils,  but  also  because, 
besides  that,  they  have  great  good  sense.  Their  behaviour 
is  excellent,  and  their  temperance  most  praiseworthy,  in 


6 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


eating,  drinking,  and  other  respects.  I  have  lived  in  Spain 
for  fifty  years,  and  in  all  that  time  I  have  not  seen  a  man 
drunk,  and  I  have  known  many  who  only  drink  water,  and 
the  women,  too,  for  the  most  part,  abstain  from  wine. 

The  majority  of  the  men  are  very  particular  with  their 
dress,  and  spend  more  on  their  clothes  and  personal  orna¬ 
ments  than  on  food  and  lodging,  or  any  other  necessaries. 
Some  austere  persons  may  not  approve  of  this;  nevertheless 
I  applaud  it,  especially  for  those  who  can  afford  it  without 
hurt  to  anybody,  and  without  putting  on  airs,  but  from  a 
regard  for  their  own  dignity  and  to  show  their  liberality.  I 
like  their  ways  of  living  and  have  always  adopted  them. 
They  concern  themselves  about  religious  matters  and  the 
salvation  of  their  souls  with  quite  as  much  diligence  and 
care  as  about  the  riches  and  amusements  of  the  world. 
Indeed  the  Spaniards  of  the  present  day  are  very  religious, 
and  display  great  reverence  for  the  worship  of  God;  the 
priests  are  very  solicitous  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the 
people,  over  and  above  celebrating  mass  and  observing  the 
canonical  hours,  and  instruct  their  flocks  with  sermons  and 
good  example.  And  laymen, — not  only  noblemen  and  edu¬ 
cated  men,  but  also  the  common  people  and  the  uneducated, 
— are  very  obedient  to  the  commandments  of  Christ  and 
the  Church.  While  some  go  to  confession  at  least  once  a 
year,  others  three  times,  and  many  four  times;  and  others, 
not  only  old  men  but  even  young  fellows,  confess  ten  times 
a  year,  or  every  month,  to  the  curate  or  some  other  priest, 
I  do  not  think  any  nation  in  the  world  today  is  as  Christian 
as  the  Spanish. 

I  now  quote  Gaspar  Contarini,  the  Venetian  ambassador 
(1525),  whom  we  shall  meet  hereafter,  as  cardinal  and 
patron  of  the  first  Jesuits: 

The  Spaniards  are  inclined  to  melancholy:  they  are  all 
physically  fit  for  martial  exercises  and  fighting;  they  are 
intelligent  and  make  a  cult  of  honor,  which  they  think 
usually  obliges  them  to  a  military  career;  and  by  natural 
bent  they  excel  all  other  nations  in  whatever  pertains  to 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


7 


war.  They  are  reserved  of  speech,  very  proud  and  haughty 
in  their  manners  and  carriage,  with  little  love  toward  their 
neighbors,  and  of  an  envious  disposition. 

Other  Italians,  believing  in  their  own  intellectual  super¬ 
iority  and  the  greater  civilization  of  their  own  country, 
were  more  critical.  Francesco  Guicciardini,  of  Florence, 
looked  severely  out  of  his  cold,  shrewd,  distrustful  eyes 
(1513).  He  reports  to  his  government: 

Spaniards  are  saturnine  in  disposition,  of  swarthy 
complexion,  and  small  of  stature;  proud,  and  full  of 
the  conviction  that  no  nation  equals  theirs.  They  are 
boastful  in  speech,  and  take  pains  to  make  all  the 
impression  they  can.  .  .  .  They  are  much  inclined  to 
arms,  more  perhaps  than  any  other  nation  in  Chris¬ 
tendom,  and  well  fitted  so  to  do,  for  they  are  very 
dexterous,  agile  and  quick  of  limb.  They  make  a  great 
point  of  honor,  and  had  rather  die  than  suffer  a  stain.  .  .  . 
They  are  considered  intelligent  and  shrewd,  and  yet  they 
are  not  good  in  liberal  arts  or  mechanical  matters;  almost 
all  the  artists  and  artisans  at  the  king’s  court  are  French¬ 
men,  or  from  some  other  country.  They  think  it  beneath 
them  to  become  merchants,  for  they  all  affect  the  humours 
of  persons  of  quality,  and  would  rather  go  soldiering  even 
with  poor  prospects,  or  take  service  with  some  great  noble 
and  put  up  with  a  thousand  discomforts,  or  (in  earlier  days) 
betake  themselves  to  the  road  as  highwaymen.  There  are 
of  course  certain  manufactures  that  they  take  up,  but  as  a 
rule  they  are  averse  to  such  things.  ...  In  public  worship 
they  affect  great  religious  behaviour,  but  they  are  not  so  in 
reality.  They  are  very  formal  in  their  manners,  and  cere¬ 
monious,  and  make  a  fine  display  of  obeisance,  with  hand- 
kissings  and  expatiation  of  titles,  “Sir,  I  am  yours  to  com¬ 
mand”;  however,  it  is  better  to  fight  shy  and  trust  them  but 
little.  They  are  great  dissemblers,  in  every  rank  you  will 
find  past  masters;  it  is  this  quality — Punic  ingenuity — that 
has  got  them  their  reputation  of  smartness  and  ability;  it 
underlies  their  ceremonious  ways  and  make-believe. 


8 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


The  Flemings,  who  came  to  line  their  pockets  in  the  train 
of  Charles  V,  also  recorded  various  impressions.  The 
Spaniards  were  poor.  In  Asturias  for  instance,  most  of 
them  went  barelegged  and  the  young  women,  on  workdays, 
barefoot;  and  in  some  places  the  poverty  was  so  great  that 
villages  were  underground,  the  dwellings,  on  account  of  the 
scarcity  of  timber,  were  mere  cellars  or  caves  dug  in  the 
earth,  like  a  rabbit  warren.  And  to  this  day  (it  may  be 
said)  lack  of  energy  has  left  a  small  region  of  Spain,  occu¬ 
pied  by  people  called  Jurdes,  in  a  very  similar  plight. 
Laurent  Vital,  whom  I  am  quoting,  attributes  their  poverty 
to  pride  and  laziness.  If  the  men  chose  to  work  they  might 
be  rich  and  have  well-appointed  houses ;  but  they  esteemed 
themselves  all  noble,  and  were  above  unnecessary  industry. 
Perhaps  it  was  their  pride  that  rendered  them,  as  he 
thought,  ill  bred.  (But  it  must  be  remembered  that  there 
was  much  bad  feeling  between  the  Flemings  and  the  Span¬ 
iards.)  Vital  gives  this  instance  of  what  he  means:  When 
the  king  went  to  Valladolid,  although  it  was  the  custom, 
sanctioned  by  law,  that  his  retinue  should  be  billeted  about 
in  houses,  occupying  if  need  were  half  the  rooms,  some 
ecclesiasts  refused  to  grant  admittance.  When  the  magis¬ 
trates  forced  the  doors  open,  the  priests  retorted  by 
excommunications  and  by  refusal  to  conduct  divine  service 
in  the  churches. 

Possibly  Vital  was  one  of  those  to  whom  admittance  was 
refused.  At  any  rate,  he  noticed — horrescit  referens — other 
fallings  below  the  standards  of  the  Low  Countries.  Babies 
were  left  out  of  doors,  to  die  of  exposure,  or  be  eaten  by 
wild  beasts.  And  in  Valladolid,  even  while  royalty  was 
there,  robbers  and  robberies  abounded.  And,  what  shocked 
him  even  more,  housewives  and  chambermaids  made  a  prac¬ 
tice  of  emptying  slops  from  upper  windows  into  the  streets. 
He  introduces  his  description  of  what  takes  place,  which 
reads  like  a  passage  from  Rabelais,  with  a  careful  “sauf  vos 
r&v£renees and  protests  that  at  least  a  warning  cry  should 
be  given.  He  also  draws  a  comparison  between  the  treat¬ 
ment  of  servants  and  horses  in  Germany  and  that  in  Castile, 
greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  Germans,  in  spite  of  the 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


9 


fact  that  they  are  “ruides  et  rebelles”  and  the  Castilians 
“assez  courtois” ;  for  both  man  and  beast  are  well  cared  for 
in  Germany,  while  in  Castile  servants  are  obliged  to  run  on 
foot  after  their  mounted  masters  in  the  country  as  well  as 
in  town,  and  at  night,  tired,  hungry,  thirsty,  and  often 
wet,  get  poor  fare,  being  lucky  to  find  a  bench  or  table  to 
lie  upon,  and  their  wages  are  paltry.  The  horses  are  treated 
in  like  fashion,  and  become  lean,  weak,  and  emaciated,  and 
at  that  they  are  belabored  with  blows.  But  in  spite  of 
these  shortcomings  Monsieur  Vital  asserts  that  in  other 
respects — with  his  mind  on  the  gentry  and  prosperous  mer¬ 
chants^ — he  much  prefers  the  ways  of  the  Castilians  to  those 
of  the  Germans,  for  the  former  accept  with  good  grace  what 
God  sends  them,  and  make  good  cheer  without  wassailing, 
wastefulness,  or  gluttony,  as  people  do  in  Germany  and  the 
Low  Countries,  “de  quoy  Dieu  est  souvent  grandement 
offense.” 

To  dwell  further  on  this  subject  would  take  us  too  far 
out  of  our  way.  Enough  has  been  quoted  to  show  that 
Spaniards  were  proud,  sober,  observant  of  Christian  ritual, 
and  poor — neglecting,  as  they  have  done  ever  since,  the 
economic  development  of  the  country,  in  their  quest  of 
glory  and  empire. 


CHAPTER  II 


CONVERSION  (1521) 

The  year  1521  is  the  turning  point,  the  master  year,  in 
Loyola’s  life.  Up  to  that  time  he  had  followed  the  common 
road  of  common  men;  but  in  that  year  there  befell  him  the 
mysterious  religious  experience  which  men  call  conversion, 
and  he  surrendered  himself  to  a  dominating  influence  that 
led  him  all  his  life.  From  that  time  he  could  well  say, 
“I  go  to  prove  my  soul” ;  and  he  proved  it  heroic. 

His  conversion  was  not  of  the  kind  that  can  point  back  to 
one  overwhelming  moment,  such  as  St.  Paul  experienced  on 
the  road  to  Damascus,  or  St.  Augustine  under  the  fig  tree, 
when  he  heard  the  voice  say  Tolle  lege ;  nevertheless, 
Loyola’s  turn-about  was  as  complete  as  theirs.  From  a  self- 
indulgent  boy  seeking  his  own  pleasure,  he  became  an 
austere  and  steadfast  man,  following  the  gleam  that  lighted 
up  the  path  of  grievous  self-denial.  The  child  of  the  world 
became  a  child  of  the  spirit.  The  cause  of  his  conversion 
is  ascribed  by  Catholic  tradition  to  the  grace  of  God.  So 
be  it;  but  without  derogation  to  the  explanation,  we  may 
look  about  to  find  what  educational  influences  were  at  work 
to  prepare  the  ground  in  which  divine  seeds  might  lodge  and 
germinate. 

In  his  youth  Loyola  did  not  go  to  college,  and  had,  as  it 
will  appear  hereafter,  but  scanty  schooling;  he  lived  the  life 
of  a  young  gentleman,  doing  his  duty  while  in  service,  and 
amusing  himself  with  escapades  and  women  in  times  of 
leisure,  and,  so  far  as  he  had  any  use  for  books,  in  reading 
tales  of  knights  errant,  especially  the  very  popular  Amadis 
of  Gaul.  These  occupations  would  make  unlikely  conduits 
for  the  flow  of  spiritual  grace.  But  an  educational  force 
was  abroad  of  great  potency,  a  moral  tonic  was  in  the  air, 
that  affected  young  men  of  finer  sensibilities,  and  educated 

10 


CONVERSION 


11 


them  as  the  universities  of  Salamanca  or  Alcala  de  Henares 
could  not  do.  During  the  formative  years  in  Loyola’s  life, 
the  tide  of  Spanish  fortune  was  mounting  to  the  flood ;  the 
spirits  of  young  men  were  swept  up  on  the  crest  of  an 
exultant  wave  of  national  pride  and  self-confidence.  So  it 
had  been  in  the  Athenian  democracy  under  Pericles,  and 
was  to  be  in  Elizabethan  England.  This  was  the  beginning 
of  what  the  Spanish  call  El  siglo  de  Oro.  Let  me  remind 
the  reader  of  what  happened  then. 

Some  twenty  years  before  Ignatius  was  born,  Aragon  and 
Castile  had  been  united  by  the  marriage  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella.  These  Reyes  Catolicos,  as  they  are  called,  were 
able  rulers;  and  from  their  marriage  and  the  consequent 
virtual  administrative  union,  great  advantages,  economic, 
political,  and  social,  accrued  to  their  kingdoms.  Stirring 
events  soon  followed  hard  on  one  another’s  heels.  The  na¬ 
tional  crusade  against  the  Moors,  which  after  seven  hundred 
years  of  dispossession,  liberated  the  last  plot  of  Spanish  soil 
from  the  shame  of  Mohammedan  dominion,  ended  in  a 
desperate  campaign  for  the  capture  of  Granada;  that  cam¬ 
paign  lasted  ten  long  years,  and  was  more  memorable  for 
its  fierce  and  chivalric  episodes  than  any  struggle  for  a  city 
since  the  fall  of  Troy.  The  Spaniards  did  not  rest  content 
with  driving  out  the  Moors.  The  primate  of  Spain,  Cardi¬ 
nal  Ximenes,  equipped  an  expedition  out  of  his  ecclesiastical 
revenues,  transported  his  army  to  Morocco,  and  blessed  it 
as  it  rushed  to  its  victorious  onslaught  upon  Oran.  Gon- 
salvo  de  Cordoba,  el  gran  capitan,  fought  the  French  for  the 
possession  of  southern  Italy,  won  battle  after  battle,  and 
added  the  kingdom  of  Naples  to  the  Spanish  dominions. 
Two  of  Loyola’s  brothers  were  killed  in  these  wars.  The 
duke  of  Alva  wrested  the  southern  portion  of  Navarre  from 
its  native  sovereign  and  ran  the  northern  boundary  of  Spain 
along  the  Pyrenees.  Ignatius  was  just  seventeen  at  the 
time  and  may  possibly  have  taken  some  part  in  the 
campaign. 

But  stirring  as  were  these  events  in  Spain  and  across 
the  waters  of  the  Mediterranean,  far  more  adventurous  and 
romantic  success  befell  the  bold  spirits  that  sailed  out  over 


12 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Spanish  and  Portuguese  discoveries, 
like  beacon  fires,  one  kindled  from  the  next,  lit  up  the  great 
darkness  that  had  hung  over  the  globe,  and  revealed  un¬ 
known  islands  and  continents  to  an  astonished  Europe. 
Columbus  and  his  followers  brought  back  marvellous  tales 
of  mysterious  shores,  and  cosmographers  began  to  set  down 
on  their  charts  fanciful  outlines  of  a  western  world.  Ponce 
de  Leon  landed  in  Florida;  Balboa  “stared  at  the  Pacific” ; 
one  ship  followed  in  another’s  wake  and  nosed  its  way,  past 
strange  beach  and  headland,  into  new  creeks  and  rivers.  A 
third  brother  of  Ignatius  perished  on  one  of  these  expedi¬ 
tions.  And  while  Spaniards  were  sailing  westward,  the 
Portuguese  sailed  to  the  east,  each  nation  inciting  the  other 
to  fresh  rivalry.  Vasco  da  Gama  doubled  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope;  other  mariners  and  buccaneers,  emulating  his 
example,  cruised  along  the  east  coast  of  Africa,  past  the 
shores  of  Arabia,  across  to  India,  and  on  to  Ceylon,  Sumatra 
and  Java.  Never  had  there  been  such  a  time  in  Europe; 
high  romance  on  canvas  wings  skimmed  the  oceans,  as 
swallows  skim  a  pond.  And  human  pulses  beat  strongest 
in  Spain.  Even  in  remote  Navarre,  these  tidings  must  have 
passed  from  mouth  to  mouth,  exciting  young  men  with 
thoughts  of  adventure  and  conquest.  Every  soldier’s  mess 
in  Pamplona  discussed  adventure  in  some  form.  It  could 
not  have  been  otherwise;  the  famous  pass  of  Roncevalles, 
where  Charlemagne’s  retreating  rearguard  had  been  routed, 
and,  according  to  Spanish  tradition,  Roland  himself  had 
been  slain  by  Bernardo  del  Carpio,  lay  not  a  day’s  ride  dis¬ 
tant.  His  horn,  the  trophy  of  victory,  still  hung  in  the 
chapel  there. 

The  romance  of  discovery  and  adventure  was,  as  I  say, 
in  the  air,  but  the  austere  Spanish  character,  which  love  of 
romance  heated  to  action,  had  been  forged  and  tempered 
by  seven  centuries  of  warfare  with  misbelievers.  While  the 
Cross  was  struggling  with  the  Crescent,  the  Roman  Catholic 
creed  was  being  bred  in  Spanish  bones,  as  integral  a  part 
of  each  man’s  personality  as  his  dark  eyes  and  swarthy  skin. 
Religion  was  one  with  patriotism,  one  with  self-preserva¬ 
tion,  one  with  the  lust  of  battle  and  the  joy  of  triumph.  So 


CONVERSION 


13 


strong  was  their  devotion  to  their  faith  that  all  pure-blooded 
Spaniards  welcomed  the  Inquisition  (1478)  with  joy,  and 
felt  a  sense  of  personal  purification  at  the  expulsion  of  the 
unbelieving  Jews  (1492).  Spaniards  looked  upon  them¬ 
selves  not  only  as  the  chief  men  of  Europe,  “of  earth’s  first 
blood,”  but  as  special  champions  of  the  Cross.  To  be  a 
Christian  was  to  be  a  soldier,  and  to  be  a  soldier  was  to 
dedicate  oneself  to  the  service  of  the  God  of  Battles.  Such 
thoughts,  like  chemical  fluids,  lay  in  solution  in  Loyola’s 
mind,  awaiting  the  sudden  troubling  of  the  soul  that  should 
crystallize  them  into  a  definite  form  of  devotion,  self-conse- 
cration  and  service;  and  underneath,  in  those  deep  regions 
of  self  where  the  issues  of  character  are  decided,  lay  a  sense 
of  repentance  and  regret  for  fruitless  years  and  trivial  acts, 
and  deeper  still  the  consciousness  of  power  that  goes  with 
genius  and  the  desire  to  put  it  to  use.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
on  a  sudden  Loyola’s  soul  came  to  birth. 

To  return  to  the  year  1521,  when  Ignatius  was  a  young 
officer  in  the  garrison  of  Pamplona.  In  the  month  of  May, 
a  French  army  marched  up  against  the  city.  The  invasion 
came  about  in  this  way.  For  a  generation  and  more  there 
had  been  disputes  over  dynastic  rights  to  the  kingdom  of 
Navarre;  France  supported  one  claim  and  Spain  another, 
but  the  real  issue  was  whether  France  should  control  the 
passes  of  the  Pyrenees  and  have  a  foothold  south  of  the 
mountains,  or  Spain  establish  her  northern  boundary  along 
the  mountain  tops.  Previous  campaigns  do  not  concern  us ; 
but  I  may  recall  the  fact  that  Csesar  Borgia,  after  strutting 
in  his  brilliant  braggadocio  role  upon  the  center  of  the 
world’s  stage,  perished  in  this  out  of  the  way  corner,  un¬ 
noticed,  in  some  chance  raid,  a  luckless  soldier  of  fortune. 
Ferdinand  played  the  game  better  than  the  French  and,  as 
I  have  said,  annexed  that  portion  of  the  little  kingdom  that 
lay  south  of  the  Pyrenees  to  the  crown  of  Castile.  The 
French  bided  their  time.  In  1521  a  revolt  of  various 
Spanish  cities,  las  comunidades,  seemed  to  offer  them  their 
opportunity,  for  Navarre  was  stripped  of  troops.  The 
French  army  crossed  the  mountains,  meeting  virtually  no 
resistance,  and  advanced  on  Pamplona. 


14  IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 

A  letter  by  some  partisan  of  the  older  regime,  dated  May 
17,  1521,  says: 

The  French  are  coming  down  the  Roncal  Valley  in  such 
numbers  that  they  can’t  be  counted.  The  towns  round¬ 
about  rose  yesterday  for  King  Don  Enrique  [the  claimant 
supported  by  France] ;  Pedro  of  Navarre,  with  the 
Marshal’s  son,  is  at  their  head.  The  duke  of  Najera  has 
hurried  from  Pamplona.  The  city  is  left  to  itself.  The 
French  army  will  be  there  tomorrow,  and  it  is  said  that  they 
need  not  unbuckle  their  spurs  before  taking  the  citadel;  it’s 
a  sure  thing.  The  whole  kingdom  is  up  for  King  Don 
Enrique,  and  the  duke  of  Najera  may  thank  God  if  he  gets 
safe  into  Castile. 

And,  on  the  21st: 

You  will  have  heard  how  the  Spanish,  shut  up  in  the 
citadel  at  Pamplona,  started  to  train  their  artillery  on  the 
city;  the  French  set  up  their  cannon  against  the  barbican 
of  the  citadel,  and,  can  you  believe  it — it  seems  incredible — 
after  a  siege  of  six  hours  by  the  clock,  the  Spanish  sur¬ 
rendered,  asking  for  quarter.  The  French  wished  to  refuse; 
the  Marshal’s  son  was  obliged  to  intercede  in  order  to  save 
them. 

These  letters  appear  somewhat  biassed ;  at  any  rate,  after 
the  French  had  entered  the  city  and  opened  fire  on  the 
citadel,  it  became  plainly  impossible  for  the  garrison  to 
maintain  itself,  and  all  the  officers,  except  Ignatius,  advised 
immediate  surrender;  but  he  persuaded  the  commandant  to 
hold  out  as  long  as  possible.  After  a  cannonade  lasting 
some  six  or  eight  hours  at  most,  a  breach  was  made  in  the 
wall,  the  French  rushed  in,  and  the  garrison  lowered  its 
flag. 

Just  before  the  last  assault,  on  May  20th,  a  cannon  ball 
broke  the  bone  of  Loyola’s  right  leg  and  inflicted  a  flesh 
wound  on  the  left.  The  victors  treated  him  with  much 
consideration,  tended  his  wounds,  and  at  the  end  of  a  fort¬ 
night  sent  him  home  to  the  castle  of  Loyola  on  a  stretcher. 


CONVERSION 


15 


For  some  reason,  the  bone  of  the  right  leg  had  to  be  broken 
again  and  reset.  Ignatius  was  very  ill,  and  the  pain  very 
severe,  but  he  bore  his  suffering  with  extreme  pluck.  His 
condition  grew  steadily  worse,  until  on  June  28th,  the  vigil 
of  the  feast  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  the  crisis  came. 
Ignatius  had  always  entertained  a  peculiar  reverence  for 
St.  Peter,  and  he  ascribed  his  recovery  to  the  apostle’s 
interposition.  The  bone,  however,  had  been  badly  set,  and 
an  ugly  protuberance  showed  itself  near  the  knee,  and  as 
he  had  not  yet  resolved  to  abandon  the  world,  and  was  still 
far  from  indifferent  to  his  personal  appearance,  he  insisted 
upon  a  further  operation,  although  the  surgeons  warned  him 
of  the  suffering.  In  addition  to  the  surgical  operation,  the 
leg  had  to  be  stretched  by  means  of  a  weight,  as  it  was 
shorter  than  the  other.  The  pain  must  have  been  torture, 
but  the  result  was  successful;  Ignatius  always  limped  a 
little,  but  so  slightly,  at  least  until  the  last  years  of  his  life, 
as  to  escape  casual  observation. 

His  convalescence  was  slow.  To  while  away  the  time  he 
asked  for  books  of  knight  errantry,  the  only  novels  existing 
in  those  days.  There  happened  to  be  none  in  the  house,  so 
they  gave  him  a  Spanish  version  of  the  Legenda  Aurea,  by 
Jacopo  da  Voragine,  and  a  Life  of  Christ  by  Ludolf  of 
Saxony,  a  pious  and  learned  Carthusian  monk,  who  had 
lived  about  two  hundred  years  before;  as  it  is  evident  that 
the  latter  book  exercised  a  great  influence  upon  Ignatius, 
during  these  critical  weeks,  it  will  be  best  to  say  something  of 
it.  Ignatius’s  copy  was  in  Castilian,  but  the  original  work 
was  in  Latin.  It  is  long,  longer  I  think,  for  instance,  than 
Guy  Mannering  or  David  Copperfield ,  and  could  well  occupy 
a  man  during  several  hours  a  day  for  a  month  in  the  careful 
reading  of  it.  It  is  a  didactic  treatise,  written  from  a  devout 
zeal  to  help  other  men  to  a  knowledge  and  love  of  Christ. 
It  treats  of  all  the  important  episodes  in  Christ’s  life  and 
interprets  their  significance,  confirming  the  author’s  com¬ 
ments  and  exhortations  with  many  passages  from  St. 
Augustine,  St.  Chrysostom,  and  other  Fathers.  It  begins 
with  a  Procemium  that  sets  forth  the  basis  of  Christian 
belief. 


16 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Christ  Is  the  Foundation  of  Salvation. 

For  other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid  (as 
the  Apostle  saith)  which  is  Jesus  Christ.  St.  Augustine 
says  that  God  is  wholly  sufficient  and  man  wholly  deficient, 
and  God  is  so  supremely  good  that  it  cannot  be  well  with 
any  one  who  turns  away  from  Him.  Therefore  whoso 
wishes  to  escape  the  damnation  due  his  sins  and  to  be 
amended  in  spirit,  must  not  forsake  that  foundation,  because 
there  he  shall  find  remedies  for  all  his  needs. 

The  Sinner  is  Invited  to  the  Mercy  and  to  the  Imitation 
of  Christ. 

First,  therefore,  let  the  sinner  who  desires  to  lay  aside  the 
burthen  of  his  sins  and  attain  peace  of  mind,  listen  to  God 
inviting  sinners  to  His  mercy,  saying,  “Come  unto  me  all  ye 
that  labor  (that  is  with  frailties)  and  are  heavy  laden  (that 
is  with  the  burthen  of  sins),  and  I  will  give  you  rest  (that  is 
by  healing  and  comforting  you)  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto 
your  souls.”  Therefore  let  the  sick  listen  to  the  tender  and 
compassionate  physician,  and  go  to  Him  in  deep  contrition 
and  with  zealous  purpose  to  turn  from  evil  forever  and  be 
good. 

Second:  let  the  sinner,  now  that  he  is  become  a  faithful 
disciple  of  Christ,  being  reconciled  to  Him  through  peni¬ 
tence,  strive  with  all  diligence  to  abide  with  his  physician 
and  become  acquainted  with  Him,  pondering  with  all  pos¬ 
sible  devotion  over  His  most  holy  life  xx.  Let  him  read  the 
life  of  Christ  in  such  manner  that  he  shall  strive  with  all 
his  might  to  imitate  Christ’s  behaviour,  xx 

Third:  as  to  the  third  point  in  the  imitation  of  Christ, 
you  must  know  that  to  imitate  Christ  is  to  follow  in  His 
footsteps,  and  to  conform  to  His  ways.  We  must  imitate 
Him  in  the  threefold  way  He  trod — the  way  of  poverty, 
humility,  and  hardship. 

The  whole  book,  in  short,  is  a  summary  of  the  beliefs  and 
ideals  of  mediaeval  Christianity.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered 


CONVERSION 


17 


at  that  a  young  man,  back  from  the  brink  of  death,  suddenly 
thrown  in  upon  himself,  facing  the  chance  of  being  maimed 
for  life,  and  suffering  intense  physical  pain,  should  be 
touched  to  the  quick  by  what  he  read.  Many  passages,  if 
one  may  judge  from  his  after  life,  sunk  deep  into  his 
memory.  Much  that  he  did  and  various  precepts  and 
counsels  in  his  book  of  Spiritual  Exercises  sound  almost  like 
echoes  of  Ludolfs  book;  as,  for  instance,  where  Ludolf  says 
that  death  to  self  is  attained  by  five  steps:  “First,  from  a 
sense  of  humility  a  man  shall  deem  himself  the  meanest  of 
men;  second,  he  shall  say  so  in  words;  third,  he  shall  bear 
patiently  hearing  it  said  by  others;  fourth,  he  shall  bear 
patiently  being  treated  wfith  contempt  by  others;  fifth,  he 
shall  not  only  not  grieve,  but  even  be  glad  that  he  is 
scorned  by  other  men.”  And  Ludolfs  precept,  Pone  ante 
oculos  gesta  prceterita  tanquam  prcesentia ,  et  sic  magis 
sapida  senties  et  jucunda — Conjure  up  before  your  eyes  the 
past  as  if  it  were  present,  for  so  doing  you  will  find  them 
[he  is  speaking  of  Christ’s  actions]  more  savory  and  pleas¬ 
ant — is  a  direct  precedent  for  Loyola’s  precepts  upon  con¬ 
templation.  And  the  passage  in  the  Spiritual  Exercises 
which  bids  the  novice  contemplate  hell  in  “its  height,  depth 
and  breadth,”  putting  his  five  senses  to  the  service  of  his 
imagination,  seems  traceable  to  Ludolf’s  description  of 
hell: 

Ibi  erit  color  ignis,  rig  c"  frig  oris,  tenebrce,  fumus,  lacrymce 
interiores,  aspectus  dcemonum,  clamor,  improperium,  mallei 
percutientium,  serpentes  et  dracones,  ariditas  sitis,  fetor  sul - 
phuris,  vermis  conscientice,  vincula,  career,  timor,  dolor, 
pudor,  et  confusio  peccatorum  omnibus  patientium,  invidia, 
rancor,  tristitia,  ablatio  spes  omnis  salutis.  (There  shall  be 
the  heat  of  fire,  the  cold  of  ice,  darkness,  smoke,  tears  that 
cannot  be  shed,  demoniacal  appearances,  uproar,  reproaches, 
hammers  pounding,  serpents,  dragons,  drought,  thirst,  smell 
of  sulphur,  the  worm  of  conscience,  chains,  dungeons,  fear, 
torture,  shame,  and  the  hurly-burly  of  sinners  suffering  from 
all  these,  and  envy,  malice,  sorrow,  and  the  loss  of  all  hope 
of  salvation.) 


18 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


We  read  this  description,  cold  and  incredulous;  but  sup¬ 
pose  a  man,  who  has  just  felt  the  finger  of  death  touch  his 
forehead,  should  believe,  and  believe  intensely,  that  such 
would  be  his  fate,  and  the  fate  of  all  men,  for  everlasting,  if 
he  and  they  should  die  in  mortal  sin,  would  he  not  engrave 
the  terrible  rede  on  the  tablets  of  his  memory?  And 
Loyola,  who  was  not  intellectual,  not  interested  in  things  of 
the  mind,  not  metaphysical  nor  curious  concerning  specula¬ 
tions,  not  poetical,  not  a  man  of  imagination  or  many  ideas, 
had  one  faculty,  in  which  so  far  as  I  know  he  has  only  been 
excelled  by  Dante,  that  of  an  intense  vividness  of  conceiving 
imaginings,  as  corporeal  things,  in  definite,  concrete  forms. 
This  faculty  was,  in  great  part,  the  source  of  his  extraordi¬ 
nary  power  over  men. 

To  return  to  Loyola’s  sick  bed.  In  these  books  he  took 
much  pleasure  and  satisfaction,  nevertheless  his  thoughts, 
still  tinged  by  Amadis  of  Gaul,  did  not  concern  themselves 
all  the  time  with  saints  and  salvation;  they  often  wandered 
off  on  the  wings  of  day  dreams  to  regions  of  romance.  One 
fancy,  indulged  in  for  hours  at  a  time,  which  he  recalled 
vividly  more  than  thirty  years  afterwards,  was  to  imagine 
a  lovely  lady,  the  Queen  or  Empress  of  some  far  country, 
himself  devoted  to  her  service,  what  feats  he  would  perform 
for  her  sake,  what  device  he  should  wear,  and  so  forth. 
Much  ingenuity  has  been  spent  in  surmises  as  to  who  this 
great  lady  was.  My  own  notion  is  that  she  was  inconstant 
in  form.  In  his  period  of  worldly  thoughts,  I  think  she  re¬ 
sembled  Don  Quixote’s  Princess  Micomicona,  and  in  his  re¬ 
ligious  moods  the  holy  Queen  of  Heaven.  At  times  also 
he  made  vague  plans  of  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  barefoot, 
living  upon  herbs;  he  meditated  upon  the  lives  of  early 
saints,  their  privations,  flagellations,  temptations,  sufferings, 
their  triumphant  self-mastery  at  the  end,  and  their  knowl¬ 
edge  and  love  of  God;  and  also  upon  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
and  St.  Dominic,  and  would  say  to  himself :  these  two  did 
thus  and  so,  why  should  not  Inigo  de  Loyola  do  the  like? 
In  this  fashion,  as  he  lay  upon  his  couch,  his  vagabond 
fancies  wandered  to  and  fro  between  vanity  and  religion. 

Ignatius’s  own  narrative  of  what  went  on  within  him  at 


CONVERSION 


19 


this  crisis  of  his  spiritual  development  is  meager;  but  there 
is  one  article  of  his  doctrine  that  can  be  assigned  to  this 
time,  and  both  because  it  is  the  most  direct  evidence  of 
what  was  going  on  in  his  mind  then,  and  because  he  regarded 
it  as  of  great  help  in  solving  a  perplexing  and  dangerous 
point  in  spiritual  regeneration,  I  will  say  something  about 
it.  His  psychological  analysis  is  sometimes  a  little  difficult 
to  accept  at  first  sight,  because  the  mediaeval  terms  in  which 
it  is  couched  tend  to  conceal  from  the  modern  reader  the 
truth  and  reasonableness  of  his  conclusions.  Appetites,  im¬ 
pulses,  inclinations,  yearnings,  are  to  him  incorporeal  spirits 
from  heaven  or  hell.  And,  where  we,  for  instance,  adopting 
a  system  of  material  localization,  speak  of  nerves  and  so 
forth,  he  speaks  of  angelical  comf  or  tings  or  of  the  artifices 
of  Lucifer:  a  habit,  indeed,  that  continued  even  in  Protes¬ 
tant  theology,  down  to  the  days  of  our  fathers.  In  the 
passage  to  which  I  refer,  he  concerns  himself  with  the 
proper  interpretation  of  the  differences  between  states  of 
contentment  and  exaltation  on  the  one  hand,  and  states  of 
depression  and  melancholy  on  the  other.  The  difference  is 
all  too  vivid;  the  difficulty  lies  in  referring  each  to  its  proper 
source.  Do  they,  whichever  they  may  be,  come  “on  airs 
from  Heaven  or  blasts  from  Hell”?  At  first  we  are  likely 
to  ascribe  consolation  to  good  angels,  and  desolation  to  bad, 
but  “It  is  possible,”  he  says,  in  his  Spiritual  Exercises,  “for 
the  good  as  well  as  for  the  bad  angel  to  afford  consolation ; 
the  good  angel  does  so  for  the  advantage  of  the  soul,  that  it 
may  progress  from  good  to  better,  but  the  other  in  order 
that  he  may  bring  the  soul  to  yield  to  his  wicked  and 
malicious  designs.  The  bad  angel,  transfiguring  himself 
into  an  angel  of  light,  sometimes  begins  by  inspiring  good 
and  holy  thoughts  in  conformity  with  the  dispositions  of  a 
just  soul,  and  afterwards  endeavors  to  draw  the  soul  into  his 
secret  snares.” 

This  question  as  to  the  source  of  inclinations,  joys,  con¬ 
solations,  hopes,  apprehensions  and  alarms,  was  not  new. 
From  the  very  beginning  of  Christian  history,  spirits  of  evil 
had  disguised  themselves  as  spirits  from  heaven  in  order  to 
cajole  timid  and  troubled  souls.  St.  John  the  Evangelist 


20 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


warned  his  flock:  “Beloved,  believe  not  every  spirit,  but 
try  the  spirits  whether  they  are  of  God.”  (I  John,  IV,  1.) 
And  St.  Anthony  of  the  Desert  says:  “We  must  pray  for 
the  gift  of  discerning  spirits,  because  as  it  is  written,  we  may 
not  believe  every  spirit.”  And  not  only  the  Christians  but 
the  pagans  knew  the  difficulty,  too.  “Often  one  who  zeal¬ 
ously  pushes  toward  some  excellence,  xxx  is  really  being 
led  utterly  astray  by  the  will  of  some  Power,  which  makes 
those  things  that  are  evil  seem  good  and  those  things  seem 
to  him  evil  that  are  for  his  advantage.”  And  that  the  diffi¬ 
culty  continued  to  give  anxiety  to  spiritual  directors  for 
several  generations  after  Loyola’s  time,  is  confirmed  by  such 
a  play  as  El  Condenado  por  desconfiado  which  turns  on  this 
very  point.  An  unfortunate  man  is  persuaded  by  a  demon 
in  the  shape  of  an  angel  to  doubt  of  God’s  infinite  mercy, 
and,  in  despair  of  salvation,  gives  himself  up  to  sin;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  fails  to  pierce  the  disguise  of  an  angel 
who  appears  to  him  in  the  likeness  of  a  shepherd  lad  and 
drops  holy  hints  in  vain.  The  consequence  is  that  the 
man’s  soul  is  damned  forever.  Or,  to  take  an  instance  from 
Ignatius’s  own  experience:  On  several  occasions  he  per¬ 
ceived  a  strange,  monstrous,  yet  beautiful  thing,  that  bore  a 
resemblance  to  a  serpent,  all  studded  with  what  looked  like 
innumerable  eyes,  but  were  not  really  eyes,  and  this  vision 
brought  him  great  consolation;  nevertheless,  as  he  after¬ 
wards  discovered,  it  was  an  emanation  from  the  Devil,  or  the 
Devil  himself.  It  might  prove,  therefore,  of  infinite  con¬ 
sequence,  rightly  to  determine  what  spirits  were  of  God  and 
what  of  Satan.  All  that  the  Memoirs  say,  however,  is  this: 

There  was  always  this  difference  [between  worldly  things 
and  divine] :  when  I  thought  of  the  world,  I  experienced 
great  pleasure,  but  when  I  grew  fatigued  and  dropped  the 
thought,  I  felt  arid  and  discontented;  and  when  I  thought 
upon  going  to  Jerusalem  barefoot,  with  no  food  but  herbs, 
doing  the  most  grievous  penances  that  ever  the  saints 
had  done,  I  not  only  found  comfort  in  these  thoughts  but 
after  I  had  dropped  them,  I  was  contented  and  happy.  But 
I  did  not  keep  my  attention  on  this  distinction,  nor  did  I 


CONVERSION 


21 


stop  to  think  about  it,  until  on  one  occasion  I  opened  my 
eyes  a  little  and  began  to  wonder  at  it  and  reflect  upon  it, 
and  then  I  perceived  from  my  experience  that  after  some 
thoughts  I  remained  sad,  and  after  others  happy,  and  little 
by  little  I  came  to  recognize  the  difference  between  the 
spirits  that  influenced  me,  one  was  from  the  Devil,  the  other 
was  of  God. 

This  power  of  discrimination  is  of  the  first  importance  in 
the  spiritual  direction  of  souls,  and  it  is  in  his  character  as 
director  of  souls  that  Ignatius,  while  dictating  his  Memoirs 
was  thinking  of  the  subject;  and  he  is  so  brief,  because  he 
assumes  a  general  knowledge  of  his  teaching,  both  in  its 
fundamental  principles  and  in  its  amplifications,  on  the 
part  of  those  for  whom  he  is  writing.  It  would  take  me 
too  far  afield  to  go  further  into  the  subject  here.  In  the 
crude,  obvious  distinctions  between  right  and  wrong,  he 
agrees  with  our  modern  ethical  teaching,  that  the  persistent 
instincts  which  postpone  the  reward  of  obedience  till  the 
morrow  or  beyond,  are,  under  a  rough  and  ready  classifica¬ 
tion,  virtuous,  while  those  more  imperious,  that  bestow 
pleasure  at  the  moment  of  indulgence,  where  enjoyment 
passes  as  the  cup  is  quaffed,  and  is  followed  by  discontent, 
or  some  ill  consequence,  are  vicious.  Abiding  satisfaction 
must,  it  would  seem,  be  the  ultimate  test.  But  he  has  in 
mind  more  delicate  distinctions  than  that, — scruples  that 
trouble  a  tender  conscience,  perplexities  that  obsess  a  peni¬ 
tent,  who  perhaps  from  fasting,  from  sleeplessness,  from 
remorse,  has  become  hypersensitive,  uncertainties  that  must 
always  obscure  the  road  to  perfection,  embarrassments  that 
arise  from  the  conflict  between  social  duties  and  the  biblical 
counsels  of  perfection,  and  other  such  causes  of  ambiguity. 
At  any  rate,  during  his  convalescence  he  was  busy  with 
the  great  question  of  right  and  wrong,  of  what  he  ought 
to  do. 

One  can  but  guess  at  the  turmoil  in  his  conscience.  His 
bodily  ills,  the  teaching  of  tradition,  the  over-refinements 
of  theological  thought,  were  at  work,  and  nobler  agencies 
as  well.  In  times  of  pain  and  weakness  when  idleness  is 


22 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


enforced  upon  the  body,  there  rise  up,  from  some  mysterious 
region,  influences  that  penetrate  and  subdue  the  waking 
consciousness,  thoughts  and  beliefs  that  have  been  sown 
unnoticed,  subtle  experiences  that  have  left  no  trace  in  the 
work-a-day  memory,  and  these,  under  the  heat  of  emotion, 
germinate  and  grow,  and  become  the  guides  and  masters 
of  conduct  and  theory.  Many  good  spirits  crowded  to  his 
bedside  ;  the  strength  that  had  come  to  him  in  youth  when 
he  lifted  up  his  eyes  to  the  Pyrenees  and  saw  their  tops 
flattered  by  the  morning  sun  or  consecrated  by  the  deepen¬ 
ing  hues  of  evening;  the  lesson  of  chivalry,  that  a  man  of 
honor  must  enlist  in  the  service  of  what  to  him  is  the  noblest 
and  most  beautiful;  the  simple  words  of  some  good  priest; 
his  mother’s  smile,  his  father’s  expectations.  And  with 
Ignatius  the  good  spirits  prevailed,  and  marked  him  for 
their  own. 

In  this  state  of  mind  his  sensibility  became  so  delicate, 
his  power  of  imaginative  concentration  so  vivid,  that  the 
objects  of  his  thought  seemed  to  appear  in  bodily  presence 
before  his  corporeal  eyes.  One  night  as  he  lay  awake,  he 
beheld  Our  Lady  with  her  Child  in  her  arms.  This  vision 
gave  him  great  consolation,  that  is,  it  “increased  his  hope, 
faith  and  charity,  and  called  him  to  heavenly  things  and 
the  salvation  of  his  soul.”  The  old  Adam  was  cast  out. 
He  conceived  so  great  a  loathing  for  the  lusts  of  the  flesh 
that  all  the  voluptuous  images  that  had  been  wont  to  rise 
up  and  disturb  his  mind,  departed  from  him  forever.  Never 
once  again,  so  he  told  Father  Gonzalez  in  1555,  had  he 
known  the  temptations  of  the  flesh.  He  surrendered  com¬ 
pletely  to  these  religious  impulses.  Much  of  the  time  he 
spent  in  prayer.  And  he  seems  to  have  become  for  the  time 
being  as  a  little  child,  and  did  childish  acts  of  devotion. 
For  instance,  he  took  the  two  books  I  have  mentioned,  the 
Life  of  Christ  and  the  Anthology  of  Saints,  and  made  a 
compendium  of  their  contents,  writing  the  words  of  Christ 
in  vermilion,  and  those  of  Our  Lady  in  blue,  all  in  most 
careful  calligraphy,  an  art  in  which  he  excelled.  It  was  the 
childhood  of  his  new  life.  That  was  but  one  aspect  of  his 
condition.  At  night  he  loved  to  look  up  at  the  starry  sky, 


CONVERSION 


23 


for  while  gazing  he  felt  within  him  a  mighty  power  to  serve 
the  Lord.  This  lifting  up  his  eyes  to  the  stars  was  a  prac¬ 
tice  all  his  life. 

I  have  often  seen  him,  in  his  old  age  [says  Father 
Ribandeneira] ,  standing  out  on  the  balcony,  or  on  some 
place  of  vantage  where  he  could  look  at  the  sky,  fix  his 
gaze  upward,  and  remain  motionless,  lost  in  thought,  for 
a  long  time,  and  then,  overcome  by  emotion,  shed  tears  of 
joy.  And  I  have  often  heard  him  say:  “How  contemptible 
the  world  seems  when  I  look  up  at  the  sky.” 

Besides  his  prayers  and  his  gazings  at  the  heavens,  he 
sought  for  strength  in  the  Bible,  and  would  quote  to  him¬ 
self:  “I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ  which  strength¬ 
ened  me.”  (Phil.  IV,  13.) 


CHAPTER  III 


SELF-DEDICATION 

In  some  such  manner  Loyola’s  conversion  took  place;  and 
the  first  fruits  were  plans  for  his  new  life.  According  to 
tradition  and  authority  there  were  two  ways  of  purifying 
oneself  from  past  sins.  One  of  these  was  to  make  a  pilgrim¬ 
age  to  Jerusalem,  and  many  did  so,  for  instance  among 
Spaniards  of  note,  Juan  de  la  Enzina,  the  earliest  of  Spanish 
playwrights,  who  had  gone  but  two  years  before.  The  other 
way  was  to  practise  vigils,  fasts,  flagellations  and  whatever 
other  acts  of  penance  the  example  of  ascetics  might  sug¬ 
gest,  or  ingenuity  devise.  Ignatius  proposed  to  take  both 
ways,  and  he  became  impatient  to  set  about  them. 

Toward  the  end  of  February,  1522,  his  health  was  pretty 
well  re-established,  and  he  decided  that  the  time  had  come 
to  go.  His  elder  brother,  Martin  Garcia,  who  had  become 
the  head  of  the  family  on  their  father’s  death,  suspected 
something,  and,  being  quite  out  of  sympathy  with  this 
renunciation  of  the  world,  spoke  out  his  mind  to  Ignatius. 
From  worldly  considerations  he  was  right.  The  times  were 
full  of  promise  for  a  soldier;  Spanish  influence  was  spread¬ 
ing  over  the  world  and  Spanish  opportunity  travelled  in 
its  wake;  the  young  King  had  been  elected  Emperor  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  ruled  over  more  lands  than 
Charlemagne  had  done;  the  regent  of  Spain,  Charles’s  old 
tutor,  who  was  at  Vittoria,  a  scant  day’s  ride  from  the 
castle  of  Loyola,  had  just  received  news  that  he  had  been 
chosen  Pope;  the  struggle  with  France  for  Milan  and  domi¬ 
nation  in  Italy  was  on;  the  reputation  of  Spanish  infantry 
was  at  its  height;  a  military  career  offered  a  straight  road 
to  honor.  Ignatius,  however,  was  not  to  be  diverted  from 
his  purpose,  and  fearing  hindrance  gave  an  evasive  answer. 

24 


SELF-DEDICATION 


25 


His  biographer  says  that  “he  did  not  depart  from  the  truth 
as  to  which  he  was  very  scrupulous,”  but  the  answer  did  not 
contain  the  whole  truth.  Let  me  say  here  that,  in  view 
of  the  opinion  popular  among  Protestants  that  Jesuits  are 
inclined  to  equivocate,  I  shall  set  forth  in  full  any  equivo¬ 
cation,  dissimulation  or  subterfuge,  or  suspicion  thereof, 
that  may  appear  in  any  of  the  sources  of  his  biography; 
at  this  moment  I  recall  no  other.  He  said:  “Sir,  as  you 
know,  the  duke  of  Najera  is  aware  that  I  am  well  again. 
It  will  be  no  more  than  my  duty  for  me  to  go  to  Navarrete 
where  he  is.”  So  he  went:  but  once  there,  having  paid  his 
respects  to  the  duke,  he  dismissed  his  brother's  servants, 
turned  his  back  on  Azpeitia,  and  took  the  road  to  Montser¬ 
rat,  the  seat  of  an  ancient  and  far-famed  Benedictine 
monastery. 

At  this  period  of  his  life,  Ignatius  was  wholly  dominated 
by  mediaeval  ideas.  He  had  probably  never  been  outside 
the  little  district  between  Azpeitia,  Arevalo  and  Pamplona. 
Stories  of  Spanish  prowess  had  reached  him  no  doubt,  but 
he  knew  nothing  of  the  great  intellectual  stirrings  which 
had  set  a  new  glory  on  Italy,  as  resplendent  as  the  crown 
of  the  Caesars  or  the  tiara  of  the  Popes,  and  was  affecting 
peoples  north  of  the  Alps  like  new  wine.  He  had  lived  in 
the  mental  atmosphere  of  an  earlier  century,  and  in  many 
ways  he  always  remained  an  intellectual  contemporary  of 
St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic;  the  singularity  of  his  career 
lies  in  this,  that,  in  spite  of  these  mediaeval  ideas,  he  was 
destined  to  divine  with  clearer  eye  than  any  other  supporter 
of  the  Roman  Church  just  what  was  necessary  to  be  done 
in  his  and  in  succeeding  generations  in  order  to  rally  the 
forces  of  conservatism  to  the  support  of  the  ancient 
ecclesiastical  order. 

After  leaving  Navarrete,  he  began  a  course  of  penitential 
discipline  such  as  the  anchorites  of  the  Thebaid  had  prac¬ 
tised,  without  regard,  as  he  himself  avows,  to  discretion, 
patience  or  humility,  or  any  notion  of  proportioning  the 
discipline  to  his  sins,  out  of  a  desire  to  undergo  all  that 
the  saints  he  had  read  of  had  undergone  for  the  glory  of 
God.  I  will  give  a  specific  instance  of  this  mediaeval  state 


26 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


of  mind.  On  the  road  a  Moor  chanced  to  ride  alongside; 
the  two  fell  into  conversation,  and  talked  about  Our  Lady. 
The  Moor  was.  walling  to  admit  that  she  was  still  a  virgin 
after  she  had  conceived,  but  averred  that  he  could  not 
understand  how  her  virginity  continued  after  the  birth  of 
her  child.  Nothing  Ignatius  said  could  shake  him;  and  the 
Moor,  weary  perhaps  of  his  fellow  traveller’s  persistency, 
rode  ahead  and  was  lost  to  sight.  As  Ignatius  reflected  over 
this  blasphemy,  he  thought  he  had  done  wrong  to  let  the 
infidel  go  unpunished,  and  was  nearly  carried  away  by  a 
sudden  impulse  to  gallop  after  and  stab  him.  Should  he 
or  should  he  not?  He  hesitated.  The  Moor  had  told  him 
just  where  he  would  turn  off  from  the  highway,  by  a  side 
path  on  his  way  to  a  village  in  the  neighborhood.  When 
Loyola  reached  this  fork  in  the  road  he  was  still  in  doubt 
as  to  what  he  ought  to  do.  Stories  were  rife  of  vengeance 
inflicted  by  indignant  Spanish  gentlemen  upon  Moham¬ 
medan  dogs  for  just  such  blasphemy.  Ignatius  dropped  the 
reins  on  his  mule’s  neck;  he  would  appeal  to  the  judgment 
of  God.  If  the  mule  turned  and  followed  the  Moor,  he 
would  run  him  through;  otherwise  not.  The  mule,  in 
brutal  indifference  to  theological  errors,  kept  to  the  main 
high  road.  The  incident  not  only  reveals  the  literal  sim¬ 
plicity  of  Loyola’s  piety,  but  also,  I  think,  judging  by  the 
usual  behaviour  of  Spaniards,  at  that  time  towards  the 
Moors,  rather  a  high  standard  of  self-restraint. 

The  mountain  of  Montserrat  lies  in  Aragon,  a  day’s  ride 
to  the  west  of  Barcelona.  There  is  no  place  similar  to  it 
anywhere.  It  rises  abruptly  out  of  the  plain  above  the  river 
Llobregat,  like  a  mad  fancy  of  Dore’s  pencil,  to  a  height, 
at  its  topmost  peak,  of  twelve  thousand  feet,  one  great  mass 
of  fantastic  shapes,  pillars,  pinnacles,  pyramids,  in  a  savage 
heap,  “ad  nubes  quad  elevatus.”  The  Benedictine  monas¬ 
tery  stood  on  a  sort  of  table-land  about  two-thirds  of  the 
way  up,  and  scattered  about  in  wild  places  higher  still  were 
hermitages — for  as  a  traveller  justly  noticed  “elegantisdmus 
locus  est  pro  heremitis” — hardly  to  be  reached  except  by 
climbing  on  all  fours.  The  way  to  the  monastery  was  very 
long,  narrow  and  rugged.  James  Howell,  the  English  letter 


SELF-DEDICATION 


27 


writer,  who  went  there  in  the  reign  of  Philip  III  before  any 
changes  had  been  made,  says: 

It  is  a  stupendous  monastery,  built  on  the  top  of  a  huge 
land  rock,  whither  it  is  impossible  to  go  up,  or  come  down 
by  a  direct  way,  but  a  Path  is  cut  out  full  of  Windings 
and  Turnings;  and  on  the  Crown  of  this  Craggy-hill  there 
is  a  Flat,  upon  which  the  Monastery  and  Pilgrimage  place 
is  founded,  where  there  is  a  picture  of  the  Virgin  Mary 
Sunburnt,  and  tann’d,  it  seems,  when  she  went  to  Egypt. 

Ignatius  had  no  sooner  arrived  than  he  sought  out  a 
venerable  monk,  to  whom  he  might  at  once  make  a  con¬ 
fession  of  his  whole  past  life.  He  could  brook  no  delay  in 
unburdening  himself  of  his  sins.  In  order  to  obtain  a 
scrupulous  accuracy,  he  spent  three  days  writing  out  the 
narrative  at  great  length.  One  of  his  chief  temptations  had 
been  sins  of  the  flesh;  so  he  resolutely  made  a  vow  to  the 
Virgin  of  perpetual  chastity.  Another  had  been  ambition 
of  worldly  honor;  so  he  stripped  off  his  cavalier’s  clothes  and 
took  the  pilgrim’s  dress  of  sackcloth,  with  staff,  and  gourd. 
He  also  dedicated  himself  to  a  life  of  poverty,  and  gave  his 
mule,  all  that  he  had  left,  to  the  monastery.  Thus  pre¬ 
pared,  on  the  eve  of  the  feast  of  the  Annunciation,  March 
24,  1522,  he  went  into  the  monastery  church  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin.  He  had  heard  how  gentlemen  of  old,  that 
were  received  into  the  order  of  chivalry,  kept  watch 
throughout  the  night  preceding  the  ceremony,  and  deemed 
it  appropriate  to  follow  these  precedents.  He  hung  up 
within  the  church  his  sword  and  dagger  as  an  offering,  and, 
accoutred  in  the  pilgrim’s  panoply  of  spiritual  warfare,  held 
the  vigil.  In  this  manner  the  new  soldier  of  Christ  entered 
into  the  service  of  his  Master. 

This  first  stage  of  Loyola’s  conversion,  from  the  defence 
of  Pamplona  to  the  vigil  in  the  church  at  Montserrat,  is 
the  tale  of  how  a  sensitive  being,  calm  in  exterior,  yet 
passionate  within,  his  imagination  peopled  by  figures  of 
knights  errant  and  ascetic  saints,  out  of  a  chaos  of  dis¬ 
contents,  sufferings  and  yearnings,  fashioned,  still  rudely 
and  imperfectly — as  an  artist  makes  his  first  sketch,  to  be 


28 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


changed  and  improved,  yet  nevertheless  through  all  changes 
and  improvements  maintaining  its  identity — the  first  design 
of  a  consecrated  purpose.  That  purpose  may  be  described 
as  an  ambition — for  all  life  long,  though  he  triumphed  over 
the  meaner  forms  of  vainglory,  he  was  a  very  ambitious 
man — to  lead  the  life  of  St.  Francis  or  St.  Dominic,  as  he 
understood  their  lives.  The  fantastic  literalness  of  his  pur¬ 
pose  to  live  according  to  a  mode  of  life  that  had  passed  away 
three  hundred  years  before,  cannot  but  suggest  to  a  modern 
reader,  however  full  of  admiration  and  sympathy  he  may 
be,  some  resemblance  to  the  noble,  chivalric  Don  Quixote, 
in  his  purpose  to  lead,  amid  an  alien  generation,  the  life 
of  Amadis  of  Gaul.  This  resemblance  was  recognized  by  the 
English  controversialist,  Bishop  Stillingfleet,  more  than  two 
hundred  years  ago,  but  it  was  not  accounted  as  a  compli¬ 
ment,  for  the  Protestant  critic  fixed  his  eyes  on  Don 
Quixote’s  valiant  disregard  of  common  sense,  and  deemed 
the  comparison  a  happy  form  of  vituperation.  Those,  how¬ 
ever,  who  admire  Don  Quixote  and  judge  that  heroism  is 
of  necessity  a  disregard  of  many  maxims  of  common  sense, 
and  see  in  Loyola  a  hero,  dominated  indeed  by  alien,  mediae¬ 
val  notions  with  which  they  are  out  of  sympathy,  will  find 
much  in  his  conduct  paralleled  by  the  high-flown  idiosyn¬ 
crasies  of  Cervantes’s  hero.  Both  Loyola  and  Don  Quixote 
were  heroic  figures,  both  were  Spanish  through  and  through, 
and  both,  to  our  way  of  thinking,  fantastic;  certainly  to 
modern  minds,  especially  those  educated  in  a  Protestant 
community,  the  ideas  and  purposes  which  Ignatius  enter¬ 
tained  are  no  more  in  accord  with  work-a-day  reason  than 
the  ideas  and  purposes  that  haunted  Don  Quixote’s 
romantic  brain.  There  is  more  than  one  passage  in  the 
novel  where  Don  Quixote  pledges  his  loyalty  to  a  most 
beautiful  lady  whom  he  has  never  seen,  that  might  with¬ 
out  the  least  infringement  upon  veneration,  if  taken  seri¬ 
ously,  be  transposed  to  Loyola’s  devotion  to  the  Virgin 
Mary;  and  his  self-dedication  to  the  rigorous  career  of 
knight  errantry,  in  the  purpose  to  overthrow  injustice,  right 
wrongs,  and  succour  widows  and  orphans,  needs  but  to  be 
raised  from  a  corporal  to  a  spiritual  plane,  in  order  to  serve 


SELF-DEDICATION 


29 


as  a  description  of  Loyola’s  heroic  purposes.  There  is, 
making  allowance  for  the  needs  of  comedy,  no  more  gallant 
gentleman  in  literature  than  Don  Quixote,  and,  making 
allowance  for  his  mediaeval  inheritance,  there  is  no  more 
gallant  or  passionate  lover  of  souls  in  Christian  history  than 
Ignatius  Loyola. 

We — that  is  most  of  us — live  in  a  world  alien  to  Loyola’s; 
we  have  been  bred  upon  ideas  and  dogmas  very  differ¬ 
ent  to  his,  and  we  necessarily  find  it  at  first  a  little  difficult  to 
step  across  the  chasm,  and  give  him  the  sympathy  that  is 
necessary  to  any  just  judgment.  We  must  make  use  of  what 
some  writers  call  the  historical  imagination.  In  the  hope 
that  it  may  help  the  reader  to  understand  what  Spanish 
sentiment  and  Spanish  religion  were  in  Loyola’s  time,  in 
el  siglo  de  oro,  I  will  quote  Menendez  y  Pelayo  again: 

In  that  society,  higher  than  the  idea  of  monarchy  or  of 
aristocracy,  high  above  any  earthly  consideration  and  all 
worldly  greatness,  rose  pure  and  spotless  the  idea  of  re¬ 
ligion,  free  from  all  taint  of  heresy  and  novel  notions.  That 
idea  of  religion,  that  ardent  Catholicism,  which  at  the  close 
of  the  middle  ages  had  driven  out  the  Jews  and  dyed  itself 
in  Moorish  blood,  was  the  unitive  force  that  held  together 
peoples  diverse  in  race,  language,  laws  and  customs.  And 
when  the  Teutonic  spirit  rose,  in  pseudo  reform  and  horrid 
protest,  against  the  Latin  principle  of  unity,  Spain  put  her¬ 
self  at  the  head  of  Southern  Europe  and  fought, — not  on 
behalf  of  temporal  gain  but  against  it — in  Flanders,  in 
Germany,  on  the  English  seas,  with  fortune  sometimes  pros¬ 
perous,  sometimes  adverse,  but  always  holding  back  the 
Northern  flood  within  those  dykes  that  it  has  never  since 
passed,  and  she  saved  herself,  and  Italy  and  France  as  well, 
from  the  Lutheran  infection.  I  cannot  deny  that  we  were 
left  poor,  spent,  almost  defenseless;  but  only  a  criticism 
that  is  meanly  utilitarian  will  judge  of  great  historic  feats 
by  the  issue;  and  it  is  true  that  there  has  never  been  an 
example  of  greater  self-abnegation  or  of  more  heroic  self  - 
sacrifice  for  an  idea,  than  that  which  our  forefathers  then 
showed.  Let  politicians  and  political  economists  laugh  their 


30 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


fill,  but  if  we  are  to  choose  between  the  maritime  greatness 
of  England  under  her  Virgin  Queen,  and  the  slow  martyr¬ 
dom  and  impoverishment  of  our  own  nation,  which  during 
two  centuries  was  the  unselfish  arm  of  the  Church,  every 
heart  that  beats  with  enthusiasm  for  the  noble  and  the 
beautiful,  will  not  hesitate  to  bestow  the  palm  on  us.  I 
grant  that  in  all  these  epic  feats  of  knightly  prowess  there 
was  some  mixture  of  blind,  narrow,  national  pride;  but 
that,  too,  had  a  noble  origin,  for  we  did  not  look  upon  our¬ 
selves  as  a  nation  born  to  command  and  other  nations  as 
destined  to  obey,  but  we  ascribed  our  feats  to  God  as  their 
source  and  origin,  narrowing  all  our  vainglory  to  the  belief 
that  God,  in  reward  of  our  faith,  had  chosen  us,  as  once  He 
chose  the  people  of  Israel,  to  be  His  sword  in  battle,  the 
instrument  of  His  justice  and  His  vengeance  upon  apostates 
and  sacrilegious  men,  and  therefore  every  man  among  our 
soldiers,  from  the  mere  fact  that  he  was  a  Catholic  and  a 
Spaniard,  believed  himself  a  Judas  Maccabseus. 

If  the  most  distinguished  Spanish  scholar  of  our  own 
times,  feels  in  this  way  of  those  heroic  days,  we  may  imagine 
what  the  patriotic  Spaniards  who  lived  in  those  days  must 
have  felt.  But,  in  speaking  of  this  ardent  struggle  to  main¬ 
tain  Catholicism  against  Protestant  dissenters,  I  anticipate 
later  years — as  there  was  as  yet  no  Protestant  schism — and 
I  do  so  in  order  to  make  Loyola’s  knightly  self-dedication  of 
himself  to  the  service  of  his  God  more  intelligible  to  readers 
who  take  religion  placidly. 


CHAPTER  IV 


MANRESA  (1522-1523) 

We  have  now  come  to  the  second  phase  of  Loyola’s  new 
life,  a  period  of  mystical  and  emotional  experiences,  and  as 
a  knowledge  of  these  experiences  is  essential  to  an  under¬ 
standing  of  his  temperament  and  character,  I  shall  describe 
them  in  some  detail. 

The  morning  after  his  vigil,  Ignatius  set  off  on  foot  for 
Manresa,  a  town  lying  a  few  miles  to  the  north.  On  the 
way  he  fell  in  with  a  lady,  Dona  Ines  Pascual,  who  from 
this  chance  meeting  became  a  lifelong  friend.  Ignatius 
would  not  tell  his  name  or  station,  but  the  discrepancy 
between  his  clothes  and  his  demeanour  aroused  the  lady’s 
interest;  she  guided  him  to  a  hospital  or  house  of  mercy 
in  the  town,  where  he  found  a  lodging. 

At  Manresa  Ignatius  put  into  practice  the  habits  of 
asceticism  and  prayer  that  he  had  read  of  in  the  lives  of 
ancient  saints.  What  those  ways  were  I  need  not  expatiate 
upon.  St.  Basil  tells  of  the  anchorites  in  his  days,  “whose 
abstinence  and  endurance  I  admired,  and  whose  constancy 
in  prayer  I  was  amazed  at;  how  they  overcame  sleep,  in 
spite  of  the  necessity  of  nature,  bearing  ever  a  high  and  free 
spirit  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  cold  and  nakedness,  not 
regarding  the  body,  nor  enduring  to  spend  any  thought 
upon  it,  but  living  as  if  in  flesh  not  their  own.”  The  whole 
ascetic  tradition  was  very  rigorous.  St.  Augustine  says: 
“By  fastings  and  watchings,  and  all  chastisement  of  the 
body,  prayer  is  especially  aided.”  Ignatius  regularly 
attended  mass  and  vespers,  passed  seven  hours  upon  his 
knees,  and  flogged  himself  three  times  every  day.  Tradition 
points  out  the  chapels  he  prayed  in  and  a  cave  where  he 
retired  for  meditation.  He  let  his  hair  grow  unkempt,  and 

31 


32 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


forbore  to  cut  his  nails.  He  begged  his  food,  and  would 
eat  no  meat  and  drink  no  wine,  except  a  little  on  Sundays 
and  feast  days.  These  bodily  privations  disturbed  his 
mental  equilibrium,  and  distressful  thoughts  tormented 
him.  At  one  time,  he  was  troubled  by  fears  lest  he  should 
be  unable  to  endure  for  long  this  mode  of  life  that  led,  as 
he  believed,  to  holiness;  at  another,  he  felt  no  joy  in  prayer 
or  in  the  office  of  the  mass;  and  then,  on  a  sudden,  “as  if  he 
had  dropped  his  cloak/'  his  heart  felt  light  again.  But  more 
often  deep  depression  prevailed.  His  heart  dried  up;  bit¬ 
terness  and  tedium  lodged  in  it.  Then,  after  a  time,  like 
a  flood  of  sunshine,  joy  would  spread  over  his  soul,  but  only 
to  subside  again  in  darkness.  Gladness  and  grief  alternated 
like  day  and  night.  His  mind  teemed  with  doubts  and 
scruples.  Had  he  really,  in  that  long  confession  before  his 
vigil,  recounted  every  sin  and  fault,  or  had  he  held  some¬ 
thing  back?  If  his  sins  had  been  absolved  why  was  he  so 
troubled?  At  times  he  would  weep  for  hours,  and  cry  to 
God  for  mercy,  and  repeat  over  and  over  St.  Paul’s  words: 
“0  wretched  man  that  I  am !  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the 
body  of  this  death?”  Suicide  flashed  across  his  mind. 

In  his  castings  about  for  relief,  he  remembered  to  have 
read  how  some  saint,  in  order  to  obtain  a  favor  from  God, 
had  fasted  until  the  favor  had  been  granted,  and  he  deter¬ 
mined  to  do  the  same.  He  went  out  of  town  privily  to 
a  chapel  dedicated  to  Our  Lady  and  spent  a  week  without 
a  mouthful  of  food,  still  keeping  to  his  three  flagellations 
a  day  and  seven  hours  of  prayer.  His  absence  was  dis¬ 
covered,  and  pious  ladies  of  the  town,  among  whom  he  had 
many  friends,  went  forth  in  search  and  brought  him  back. 
His  fast  had  lasted  from  Sunday  to  Sunday,  and  he  would 
have  still  persisted,  but  that  his  confessor,  under  penalty 
of  refusing  absolution,  commanded  him  to  eat.  So  he  ate, 
and  for  two  days  felt  much  better;  on  the  third  day,  how¬ 
ever,  a  relapse  came  and  the  black  thoughts  rushed  back. 
But  now  his  mind  was  clear  enough  to  perceive  that  all 
these  perturbations  had  been  the  Devil’s  doing  in  order  to 
turn  him  from  his  purpose,  and  at  this  discovery  peace  and 
consolation  descended  upon  him  in  wonderful  abundance. 


MANRESA 


33 


Nevertheless,  scruples  still  dogged  him.  For  instance, 
when  he  went  to  bed,  spiritual  joy  gushed  up  within  him, 
and  was  so  grateful  and  comforting  that  he  lay  awake  with 
the  pleasure  of  it,  and  had  little  time  left  for  sleep;  but 
without  sleep  he  found  himself  ill  prepared  next  day  for 
his  duties,  and,  therefore,  he  denied  himself  his  spiritual 
reveries.  Years  afterwards,  at  the  university,  he  learned 
a  similar  lesson,  that  he  must  not  let  meditation  or  prayer 
cut  into  the  time  that  should  be  spent  in  preparation  for 
lectures;  for  a  man’s  business  is  to  do  his  allotted  task  and 
he  must  not  permit  even  the  highest  spiritual  joy  to  hinder 
him.  At  length  he  passed  into  a  season  of  peace  and  hap¬ 
piness;  he  felt  that  God  was  dealing  with  him,  as  a  school¬ 
master  deals  with  a  little  child,  proceeding  step  by  step, 
always  proportioning  the  child’s  task  to  his  strength,  and 
not  passing  on  to  the  next  lesson  until  the  last  had  been 
mastered. 

Writers  on  mysticism,  familiar  with  the  recorded  experi¬ 
ences  of  saints  and  visionaries,  usually  describe  the  course 
of  their  singular  psychical  phenomena  as  taking  place  very 
much  in  the  same  general  way.  First  comes  conversion, 
that  is  complete  surrender  to  an  imperious  impulse  to 
abandon  the  world.  Next  follows  the  purgative  way,  in 
which  purification  is  partly  voluntary  and  partly  not.  The 
repentant  man  by  means  of  prayer,  meditation,  scourging 
and  privation,  strives  to  wash  from  his  soul  the  stains  of 
sin;  and,  as  if  physical  pain  were  not  enough,  black 
thoughts  not  of  his  willing  crowd  upon  his  spirit.  But  after 
repentance,  discipline  and  mental  torment  have  cleansed 
the  soul,  then  the  grace  of  God  descends  upon  her  in 
blessings, 

j 

A  thousand  liveried  angels  lackey  her 
And  in  clear  dream  and  solemn  vision 
Tell  her  of  things  that  no  gross  ear  can  hear. 

This  stage  is  called  the  ihuminative  way.  Loyola  trod  it; 
so  did  the  two  famous  figures  in  Spanish  religious  history 
who  came  after  him,  St.  Theresa  and  St.  John  of  the  Cross. 
They  have  left  of  their  spiritual  experiences  a  far  fuller 


34 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


record  than  any  that  we  possess  from  him.  What  they  tell 
at  great  length  enables  us  to  fill  in  and  round  out  the  con¬ 
densed  narrative  of  Loyola’s  mystical  experiences.  And 
if  in  these  three  saints  we  find  the  language  that  they  speak, 
their  symbols,  their  emblems  and  their  imagery,  alien  to 
our  thought,  or  outside  the  pale  of  our  sympathy,  hard  even 
to  understand,  then  we  must  translate  their  visions  and 
ecstasies,  as  we  do  their  Spanish  words,  into  such  figures  and 
symbols  as  shall  represent  for  us,  with  our  different  educa¬ 
tion,  this  trudging  up  the  purgatorial  hill  by  passionate 
souls,  and  their  solemn  delight  at  beholding  gleams  of  divine 
splendor  on  the  summit  far  above  them. 

Cardinal  Newman  in  hitting  off  three  types  of  spiritual 
life,  says  that  St.  Benedict  represents  the  poetical,  St. 
Dominic  the  scientific,  and  St.  Ignatius  Loyola  the  prac¬ 
tical.  x4nd  Loyola  was  practical,  very  practical,  in  that 
he  set  before  himself  a  definite  plan  for  the  salvation  of  men, 
and  in  order  to  execute  that  plan  busied  himself  with  social, 
political  and  ecclesiastical  forces,  and  studied  his  disciples 
as  an  artisan  studies  his  tools,  so  that  he  was  able  to  use 
them  with  nice  discrimination,  setting  each  to  the  particular 
task  for  which  his  character  or  talents  fitted  him.  That, 
however,  is  but  one  side  of  the  man;  the  other  is  this  pas¬ 
sionate,  mystical  side,  upturned  to  God,  losing  itself  in 
visions  beatific.  Supernormal  sights  appeared  to  Loyola 
all  his  life,  but  it  was  at  this  time  that  they  played  their 
formative  part  in  his  spiritual  education.  Some  of  them  I 
shall  describe.  They  were  all  fashioned  out  of  images  and 
ideas  familiar  to  Catholic  teaching,  set  forth,  that  is,  in  the 
pictorial  language  with  which  he  was  familiar,  hieroglyphics 
of  mediaeval  spiritual  life. 

Once,  while  on  his  knees  in  prayer  to  the  Virgin,  his 
soul  was  lifted  up,  and  he  beheld,  as  if  with  his  corporal 
eyes,  an  image  of  the  Trinity.  He  was  so  moved  by  this 
that  even  after  he  had  gone  to  table  he  could  not  keep  back 
the  tears;  he  talked  of  nothing  else,  and  expounded  the 
blessed  mystery  with  comparisons  and  instances  in  so  mani¬ 
fold  a  fashion,  that  all  who  heard  him  were  carried  away 
by  admiration.  Not  satisfied  with  telling  of  it,  he  com- 


MANRESA 


35 


posed  a  little  book  of  eighty  pages  about  it ;  and  all  his  life 
the  vision  endured  fresh  and  vivid  in  his  memory.  And 
whenever  he  prayed  to  the  Trinity,  he  was  conscious  of  a 
singular  sweetness.  In  another  vision  he  grasped  intellectu¬ 
ally  how  and  in  what  manner  God  had  created  the  world; 
but  this  he  could  not  recount  in  words/ As  Dante  says — 

il  mio  veder  fu  maggio 
che  il  parlar  nostro  ch’a  tal  vista  cede. 

My  vision  was  greater  than  our  speech 
Which  quails  before  such  seeing. 

^  And  again,  during  mass,  with  the  eyes  of  the  spirit  he  beheld 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  very  God  and  very  man,  present  in 
the  host.  Often — and  this  happened  to  him  also  later,  at 
Jerusalem,  Padua,  and  various  places — he  saw  a  vague 
shape  without  members  in  a  luminous  body  (so  he  described 
it)  our  humanity  in  the  divine  person  of  God  the  Son. 
Visions  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  were  also  vouchsafed  to  him. 
These  divine  revelations  filled  his  soul  with  celestial  light, 
and  established  his  faith  in  such  certitude  that  he  was  ready 
to  die  for  it;  and,  as  he  used  to  say,  if  the  Bible  were  to  be 
lost,  he  could  teach  the  divine  mysteries  from  his  knowledge 
of  them  got  in  this  vision,  so  deeply  engraven  were  they 
on  his  heart.  .  ' 

But  of  all  these  experiences  the  most  memorable  was  that 
which  occurred  while  he  was  walking  along  the  bank  of 
the  river  Cardona  on  his  way  to  a  chapel,  a  mile  out  of 
the  town.  He  had  sat  down  looking  toward  the  water. 
While  he  sat  there,  the  eyes  of  his  understanding  were 
opened.  It  was  not  a  visual  experience,  but  he  was  con¬ 
scious  of  a  comprehension,  an  intellectual  revelation,  con¬ 
cerning  spiritual  matters  that  touch  faith  and  Holy  Writ, 
vivid  beyond  all  comparison  with  what  he  had  known  or 
understood  before,  so  that  it  all  seemed  quite  new.  His 
mind  was  so  illuminated  thereby  that  he  seemed  to  him¬ 
self  to  have  become  another  man  and  to  possess  another 
understanding.  He  was  never  able  to  recount  this  revela¬ 
tion  with  any  particularity;  all  he  could  say  (as  he  did  late 


36 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


in  life)  was  that  his  understanding  had  received  a  great 
light,  and  that  if  he  were  to  take  and  put  together  all  other 
gifts  of  help  and  succour  that  he  had  received  from  God 
in  all  his  years,  their  total  sum  would  not  make  up  the 
equivalent  of  what  he  had  received  in  that  one  experience. 

One  other  psychical  experience  remains  to  be  told.  It 
rests  upon  good  evidence  although  Ignatius  himself  never 
mentioned  it.  He  was  naturally  reserved.  Father  Polanco, 
the  earliest  disciple  to  write  his  life,  says:  “Erat  in  suis 
rebus  communicandis  difficilis” ;  the  reason  was  that  his 
modesty  forbade  him  to  reveal  many  strange  happenings 
which  he  believed  were  special  favors  from  God.  I  quote 
Father  Ribadeneira: 

One  Saturday  at  the  hour  of  compline  Ignatius  fell  down 
in  a  trance.  A  great  number  of  men  and  women  beheld 
him,  and  were  about  to  make  preparations  for  disposing  of 
his  dead  body,  when  one  of  them  noticed  that  his  heart 
was  still  beating,  though  faintly.  This  extraordinary  con¬ 
dition  lasted  until  the  next  Saturday  at  the  same  hour. 
Then,  in  the  presence  of  several  people  who  were  keeping 
watch,  Ignatius  opened  his  eyes,  and,  as  if  awakening  from 
a  sweet  sleep,  said  with  love  in  his  voice:  “Ah!  Jesus.”  This 
I  had  from  persons  present;  for  the  blessed  father  never 
spoke  of  it  to  my  knowledge,  hiding  in  silent  humility  this 
great  act  of  God’s  grace. 

Doha  Isabel  Roser,  a  lady  of  Barcelona  who  knew 
Ignatius  well  afterwards,  also  told  Father  Ribadeneira  that 
eye  witnesses  had  recounted  the  same  story  to  her;  and 
Juan  Pascual,  son  of  Ines  Pascual,  also  told  Ribadeneira 
that  he  was  present,  being  then  sixteen  or  seventeen  years 
old,  and  that  when  he  saw  Ignatius  in  this  state  he  ran  to 
his  mother  calling  out,  “Mother!  the  saint  is  dead.” 

o  s  6  •  *vt  -f  "K  • K  h '  “ 

These  ecstasies,  visions  and  other  emotional  experiences 
were  primarily  due,  unless  we  accept  a  mystical  or  super¬ 
natural  explanation,  to  the  weakness  of  his  poor,  ill-treated, 
underfed  body ;  but  that  they  dealt  with  heaven  and  things 


MANRESA  37 

divine,  and  not  with  worldly  honors  or  bedizened  courtesans, 
was  wholly  due  to  the  habit  of  his  thoughts. 

At  Manresa  Ignatius  made  the  first  draft  (though  I 
should  not  speak  positively  in  a  matter  concerning  which 
we  have  little  definite  to  go  upon)  of  his  Spiritual  Exer¬ 
cises ,  or  at  least  of  the  earlier  chapters.  These  Exercises 
were  the  fruit  of  his  own  experience;  they  are  a  carefully 
arranged  exposition  of  the  practices  which  had  enabled  him 
to  triumph  over  temptation,  or  rather  a  syllabus  of  such 
practices,  since  they  are  meant  for  use  in  the  guidance  of 
souls  by  spiritual  directors,  and  not  for  the  disciple  or  novice 
himself.  I  shall  speak  of  them  more  fully  hereafter.  They 
are  intended  to  rouse  the  soul  to  repentance  and  effort  by 
means  of  prayer,  of  meditation  both  on  the  mysteries  of 
religion  and  the  consequences  of  sin,  and  to  instil  into  the 
penitent  a  feeling  that  it  is  his  duty  to  enroll  himself  as  a 
soldier  under  the  banner  of  Christ.  No  doubt,  as  time  went 
on,  and  his  experience  of  life  broadened  and  his  knowledge  of 
men  increased,  he  altered  and  added;  but  probably  the 
Exercises  remained  in  essentials  as  he  first  conceived  them. 
The  book  had  an  extraordinary  influence,  supported,  as  it 
was,  by  the  potent  personality  and  passionate  purpose  of 
the  teacher.  He  believed  that  he  had  composed  this  treatise 
not  without  divine  guidance  and  help. 

Ignatius  stayed  at  Manresa  about  a  year;  it  was  a  year 
of  spiritual  labor  as  well  as  of  spiritual  experiences.  He 
began  to  gather  disciples  about  him.  Perhaps  I  should  not 
use  so  strong  an  expression,  but  limit  myself  to  saying  that 
he  got  into  the  way  of  sharing  with  his  neighbors  the  light, 
which,  as  he  believed,  he  had  received  from  God.  He  gave 
spiritual  counsels  to  all  that  would  hearken  to  him;  and, 
as  he  was  gifted  with  the  eloquence  that  comes  from  con¬ 
viction  and  from  the  passionate  desire  to  save  souls,  he  had 
a  number  of  listeners.  In  this  occupation  he  spent  several 
hours  every  day.  He  prayed  with  them  and  exhorted  them, 
taking  care  not  to  assume  the  tone  of  a  teacher,  as  if  he 
were  better-  or  wiser  than  they.  He  gives  an  instance  of  his 
behaviour.  Usually  he  lived  upon  the  food  begged  from 
charitable  persons,  but  if  any  one  invited  him  to  dine,  he 


38 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


would  accept.  During  dinner  he  did  not  speak,  unless  asked 
a  question;  in  that  case  his  custom  was  to  stop  eating  and 
answer.  Observing  this  his  host  usually  forbore  to  ask 
questions  until  they  had  left  the  table.  After  dinner  he 
would  take  his  cue  (though  not  always)  from  something 
that  had  been  said  at  table,  and  enter  upon  a  spiritual  dis¬ 
course,  according  as  God  prompted  him,  for  he  used  not  to 
think  beforehand  about  what  he  should  say;  if  he  did  he 
spoke  poorly.  These  talks,  it  is  said,  were  very  edifying; 
and  in  part  owing  to  them  but  chiefly  to  the  Spiritual 
Exercises,  which  were  already  spread  abroad  in  the  town, 
many  persons  mended  their  ways  of  life  and  made  note¬ 
worthy  progress  on  the  spiritual  path. 

During  the  winter  he  fell  ill  of  a  serious  fever,  probably 
in  consequence  of  his  austerities.  He  recovered,  but  return¬ 
ing  to  his  privations  and  discipline,  fell  ill  again;  the  same 
thing  happened  a  third  time,  and  his  friends  in  alarm  now 
took  care  of  him.  The  magistrates  provided  a  lodging  and 
what  things  were  necessary,  and  honorable  ladies  took  turns 
in  watching  by  his  bedside  through  the  night.  Upon  con¬ 
valescence  he  was  induced  to  wear  warmer  clothes,  and  a 
cap,  as  well.  He  also  abandoned  the  exaggerated  asceticism 
of  not  cutting  his  hair  and  nails.  From  these  illnesses  he 
learned  the  lesson  for  himself, — he  always  was  profiting  by 
his  experiences — and  in  later  years  taught  it  as  a  precept 
to  his  disciples,  that  in  times  of  sickness  a  man  should  abate 
the  fervour  of  devotional  practices,  until  bodily  strength  has 
returned,  and  in  the  meantime,  so  far  as  his  condition  will 
permit,  cultivate  patience  and  concern  himself  with  the 
edification  of  others.  As  Father  Polanco  says:  “God  had 
indeed  given  him  a  remarkable  talent  for  unmasking  temp¬ 
tations  and  for  directing  those  who  were  deeply  concerned 
with  spiritual  things.” 

During  his  stay  in  Manresa  he  had  mastered  the  first 
lesson  in  his  spiritual  education,  and,  as  he  believed,  God, 
the  divine  schoolmaster,  now  summoned  him  to  another. 
It  was  time  to  go  to  Jerusalem,  so  he  bade  goodbye  to  his 
friends  and  betook  himself  to  the  port  of  Barcelona.  Here 
we  get  our  first  understanding  of  how  wholly  he  was  ab- 


MANRESA 


39 


sorbed  by  his  inner  vision.  Every  other  visitor  was 
enchanted  by  Barcelona.  Set  on  little  hills  in  the  midst  of 
its  gardens  of  oranges,  lemons  and  cypresses,  guarded  by 
its  turreted  walls  and  watched  over  by  its  stately  cathedral 
— fabrica  exquisitissima- — no  town  could  be  more  picturesque 
and  charming.  In  this  pleasant  region  Loyola  came  upon 
all  the  beauty  of  the  south,  with  its  luxuriant  herbage,  its 
pomegranates,  medlars  and  pineapples,  its  vines  heavy  with 
grapes,  all  ripe  (as  it  seemed  to  travellers  from  the  north) 
before  their  time,  and  the  tropical  palms  standing  like  sen¬ 
tries  here  and  there.  But  he  noticed  these  things  no  more 
than  the  Prince  in  the  story  galloping  to  his  Princess 
notices  the  road  of  gold  beneath  his  horse’s  hoofs. 


CHAPTER  V 


PILGRIMAGE  TO  JERUSALEM  (1523-1524) 

All  that  we  know  of  these  travels  of  Ignatius  through 
Italy  to  Jerusalem  is  what  he  himself  has  said  in  his 
Memoirs .  Probably  even  at  the  time  he  dictated  them,  in 
his  old  age,  he  did  not  appreciate  the  immense  influence 
these  experiences  had  had  upon  him.  In  Italy  he  learned, 
all  unwittingly,  of  the  Renaissance,  already  past  its 
meridian,  and  of  the  dawning  Reformation,  and  in  Jeru¬ 
salem  how  mistaken  his  conception  of  the  true  danger  to 
Christianity  had  been.  I  mean  that  he  became  aware  of 
facts  and  circumstances  from  which  his  sagacious  reason, 
working  in  some  subconscious  part  of  his  mind,  slowly  fash¬ 
ioned  the  policy  for  saving  and  strengthening  the  Holy 
Roman  Church  that  he  finally  matured  and  put  into  effect. 

His  plan  of  going  single-handed  to  convert  the  Turks  to 
Christianity  sounds,  in  modern  ears,  most  Quixotic. 
Loyola’s  sagacity,  however,  as  I  see  things,  was  as  sound 
at  that  time  as  in  his  later  years;  even  this  wild  plan  is 
evidence  of  it.  His  creed  was  simple;  Christianity  was  set 
over  against  Mohammedanism,  and  as  a  faithful  soldier  of 
Christ  it  was  his  business  not  to  balk  at  any  forlorn  hope. 
The  boldest  strategy  was  to  strike  at  the  very  center  of  the 
enemy’s  position;  it  was  also  the  wisest.  Had  not  David 
overcome  Goliath?  This  belief  that  Mohammedanism  was 
the  most  dangerous  enemy  of  the  Holy  Roman  Catholic 
Church  was  purely  mediaeval.  It  is  evident  that  Ignatius 
knew  nothing  of  the  great  intellectual  awakening  that  had 
swept  over  Italy  and  from  Italy  northward,  and  had  affected 
Christianity  so  powerfully;  nothing  of  the  recent  Lutheran 
revolt.  Intellectual  doubts  and  disobedience  within  the 
body  of  the  Church  constituted  its  danger,  not  the  followers 

40 


PILGRIMAGE  TO  JERUSALEM 


41 


of  an  alien  creed.  Loyola’s  complete  ignorance  of  the  state 
of  religion  in  Europe  outside  of  Spain  prevented  him  from 
understanding  this;  but  with  regard  to  political  matters, 
he  was  not  far  wrong.  Islam  was  at  the  height  of  its  power 
and  full  of  aggression.  The  Ottoman  Turks  had  overrun 
Syria  and  Egypt,  they  were  already  in  Belgrade  and  draw¬ 
ing  nearer  to  Vienna ;  they  had  possession  of  Rhodes  and  dis¬ 
puted  the  supremacy  of  the  Mediterranean ;  they  threatened 
Italy,  even  Rome  itself.  Suleiman  the  Magnificent  seemed 
certain  of  Mohammed’s  Paradise,  if  conquest  could  make 
sure  of  it.  The  gentle,  Christian,  meek  Pope  Adrian  was 
doing  all  he  could  to  equip  an  army,  and  to  induce  Charles 
and  Francis  to  make  peace  and  turn  their  arms  against  the 
common  enemy.  Alone  of  Europeans  Loyola  put  his  faith 
in  the  teaching  of  Jesus:  “I  say  unto  you,  love  your  ene¬ 
mies”  and  wished  to  obey  that  teaching.  Erasmus,  it  is 
true,  had  written: 

We  are  not,  I  presume,  to  kill  all  the  Turks.  The  sur¬ 
vivors  are  to  be  made  Christians.  .  .  .  While  our  lives  and 
manners  remain  as  depraved  as  they  now  are  the  Turks 
will  see  in  us  but  so  many  rapacious  and  licentious  vermin. 
How  are  we  to  make  the  Turks  believe  in  Christ  till  we 
show  that  we  believe  in  Him  ourselves?  .  .  .  Show  them 
that  Christ’s  yoke  is  easy,  that  we  are  shepherds  and  not 
robbers,  and  do  not  mean  to  oppress  them.  Send  them 
messengers  such  as  these  instead  of  making  war,  and  then 
we  may  effect  some  good.  .  .  .  Christians  ought  to  show 
their  faith  in  their  works,  and  convert  Turks  by  the  beauty 
of  their  lives. 

But  Erasmus  was  not  in  earnest,  he  was  indulging  him¬ 
self  in  irony  at  the  expense  of  current  Christianity.  So  was 
his  Spanish  disciple,  Juan  Valdes,  who  already  betrays  his 
Protestant  leanings  in  his  Colloquy  between  Charon  and 
the  soul  of  a  King  who  has  come  to  the  fatal  ferry: 

Charon.  Did  you  do  aught  for  the  love  of  God? 

Soul.  What  a  question!  Of  course  I  did. 


42 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Charon.  What? 

Soul.  I  made  war  against  the  Turks. 

Charon.  How? 

Soul.  I  did  them  all  the  harm  I  could. 

Charon.  And  how  did  you  come  to  think  that  you  were 
rendering  God  a  service  by  so  doing?  Don't  you  see  that 
the  more  harm  you  did  to  the  Turks,  the  more  they  hated 
Jesus  Christ,  and  became  more  obstinate  in  their  opinions? 

Soul.  Well,  in  what  way  would  you  have  us  make 
Christians  of  them? 

Charon.  After  you  had  governed  your  own  subjects 
well,  in  peace  and  prosperity,  and  you  and  they  were  leading 
good  Christian  lives,  then  it  would  have  been  soon  enough 
to  try  to  convert  the  Turks.  The  first  thing  would  be  to 
use  them  with  great  kindness,  in  order  to  win  them  to  our 
faith  by  means  of  love,  as  the  Apostles  did  when  they 
preached  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ;  and  afterwards,  if  they 
could  not  be  converted  by  means  of  love,  and  there  was  no 
other  way  to  safeguard  the  honor  of  Jesus  Christ,  then  you 
might  proceed  to  convert  them  by  force,  but  you  should 
act  with  such  great  moderation  that  the  Turks  would  know 
that  you  were  not  making  war  for  conquest,  or  for  robbery, 
but  solely  for  the  salvation  of  their  souls.  Tell  me,  then, 
is  that  the  way  you  went  about  it? 

Soul.  Of  course  I  didn’t  act  in  that  way;  nobody  ever 
advised  me  that  such  was  the  way  to  do. 

Charon.  Then  you  may  take  it  from  me  that  before  you 
shall  turn  Turks  into  Christians  you  will  have  turned  your 
subjects  into  worse  than  Turks. 

This  is  a  satire.  Valdes  no  more  than  Erasmus,  would  have 
dreamed  that  preaching  the  gospel  was  a  practicable  means 
of  converting  the  Turks;  but  Ignatius  did.  St.  Francis 
had  gone  to  Egypt  and  tried  to  convert  the  Soldan  by 
preaching;  why  should  he  not  at  least  try  to  convert  in¬ 
fidelity  in  the  most  sacred  of  cities,  and  thereby  bring  all 
the  world  into  one  fold,  under  one  shepherd?  His  ambition 
was  very  great,  he  was  confident  in  what  Father  Gonzalez 
calls  “la  voluntad  que  el  mismo  Dios  le  avia  dado  por 


PILGRIMAGE  TO  JERUSALEM 


43 


servirlo — the  steadfast  will  that  God  Himself  had  given  him 
for  His  service,”  and  up  to  this  visit  to  Italy  he  had  lived 
in  a  world  of  mediaeval  thought.  Infidels  were  the  enemies 
of  God,  whether  they  were  Moors,  Arabs  or  Ottoman  Turks. 
All  Spaniards  had  been  taught  this  from  infancy.  Might 
it  not  be  that  he  was  God's  chosen  instrument  to  accom¬ 
plish  by  humility  and  love,  what  force  and  arms  had  failed 
to  achieve?  I  think  it  will  help  to  explain  his  state  of  mind 
if  I  quote  what  a  recent  historian  writes  of  Christopher 
Columbus,  himself  the  best  exponent  of  ideas  that  helped 
shape  Ignatius's  character  in  his  youth : 

Christopher  Columbus  was  wedded  to  an  ultimate  pur¬ 
pose,  one  which  dominated  his  life  and  which  in  dying  he 
bequeathed  as  a  legacy  to  his  heirs, — the  institution  of  a  new 
Crusade  and  the  recovery  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  All  else 
that  he  proposed  or  accomplished  was  subordinate  and  sub¬ 
sidiary  to  this  absorbing  project.  This  was  his  mission.  He 
believed  that  to  effect  this  he  had  been  brought  into  the 
world,  a  predestined  agent  of  God  to  restore  to  the  Christian 
world  the  birth-place  of  the  Saviour.  He  believed  himself  a 
messenger  of  the  Most  High  charged  with  the  deliverance  of 
Jerusalem.  ...  We  can  comprehend  him  only  when  we  see 
him  as  he  saw  himself,  when  we  realize  that  he  held  himself 
a  Divine  agent  selected  to  execute  a  grand  design,  the  accom¬ 
plishment  of  which  he  believed  would  close  perhaps  the  last 
chapter  of  the  world's  history  and  introduce  the  thousand 
years  of  peace. 

But  Columbus  meant  to  conquer  Jerusalem  and  put  down 
infidelity  by  force,  while  Loyola  proposed  to  follow  the 
example  of  St.  Francis.  So  strongly  did  this  idea  dominate 
him,  that  even  fifteen  years  later,  after  he  had  seen  much 
of  the  world,  he  remained  outwardly  at  least,  faithful  to  it, 
and  proposed  to  lead  his  little  band  of  disciples  to  Palestine. 
I  do  not  mean  to  deny  that  Loyola  wished  to  benefit  his 
own  soul  by  undertaking  the  holy  pilgrimage  to  Jeru¬ 
salem,  by  no  means:  he  always  held  to  the  double  purpose 
of  saving  his  own  soul  and  the  souls  of  others.  But  I 


44 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


cannot  but  feel — though  I  must  admit  that  the  scanty 
words  of  his  Memoirs,  our  only  direct  evidence,  do  not 
justify  it — that  he  hoped  to  convert  the  Turks  and  win 
Jerusalem  single-handed;  I  think  that  he  had  infinite  con¬ 
fidence  in  the  power  of  the  Christian  God  and  felt  that 
prayer,  preaching  and  example  were  the  right  methods  to 
overcome  an  enemy. 

Loyola  had  two  sides,  of  so  different  an  aspect  that  it 
seems  almost  incredible  that  they  belonged  to  one  man, 
the  mystical  Loyola,  who  fixed  his  eyes  on  heaven,  beheld 
visions,  dreamt  dreams,  was  subject  to  ecstasy,  and  the 
intensely  practical  Loyola,  who  kept  his  eye  on  the  earth, 
estimated  human  capacities  and  weaknesses  with  the  nicety 
of  a  diamond  cutter,  knew  how  to  play  upon  hope,  ambi¬ 
tion,  desire  and  fear,  was  patient,  laborious,  contriving,  and 
full  of  resources.  And  strangely  enough,  if  this  be 
psychologically  possible,  while  his  waking  consciousness  was 
lost  in  dreams,  down  in  the  depths  of  his  nature  his  prac¬ 
tical  genius  was  considering  how  to  put  those  dreams  to  use; 
and,  vice  versa,  while  his  senses  were  busy  with  the  actual 
his  mind’s  eye  gazed  into  the  far  future.  For  instance,  in 
the  midst  of  his  spiritual  devotions  something  within  him 
brooded  over  the  plan  of  a  society;  and,  again  (so  at  least 
it  seems  to  me),  while  he  was  teaching  some  young  novice 
the  elementary  rules  of  self-discipline,  primarily  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  saving  his  soul,  his  visionary  eye  already  beheld  the 
boy,  a  grown  man,  master  of  himself,  preaching  the  true 
faith  to  the  weak,  the  deluded  and  the  tempted,  or  risking 
corporal  life  in  order  to  save  the  souls  of  savages  in  Ceylon 
or  Brazil.  Perhaps  I  am  mistaken,  but  I  cannot  but  suspect 
that  the  practical  Loyola,  as  soon  as  he  got  to  Rome  and 
learned  a  little  of  the  real  state  of  things,  down  in  sub¬ 
conscious  depths  became  aware  that  this  plan  of  convert¬ 
ing  Turks  was,  to  say  the  least,  by  no  means  possible,  and 
that  this  subconscious  knowledge  was  the  real  cause  why 
when  he  actually  got  to  Jerusalem  he  did  not  stay. 

With  this  digression  I  return  to  my  story,  and  give  his 
narrative,  somewhat  abbreviated.  He  reached  Barcelona 
in  the  end  of  February,  1523,  and  set  about  finding  passage 


PILGRIMAGE  TO  JERUSALEM 


45 


by  sea  to  Italy,  the  first  stage  of  his  pilgrimage.  Friends 
wished  to  go  with  him,  but  he  refused.  He  said  that  he 
desired  no  companions  but  Faith,  Hope  and  Charity.  In 
order  to  have  his  companion  Faith  without  flaw,  he  pro¬ 
posed  to  take  absolutely  nothing  except  gown  and  staff. 
But  the  captain  of  the  ship,  who  was  ready  to  give  him 
a  passage  gratis,  put  his  foot  down  and  said  that  he  must 
take  his  own  food.  Ignatius  hesitated.  However,  compelled 
by  his  confessor,  he  acquiesced,  but  the  coins  which  were 
given  him  while  begging,  he  left  on  the  beach.  This  spirit  of 
ascetic  piety  was  personal  to  Ignatius,  not  a  mere  appur¬ 
tenance  of  the  times.  Records  show  that  pilgrims  to  the 
Holy  Land  took  good  care  of  the  body,  making  provident 
bargains  for  its  keep;  “for  breakfast  three  rolls  and  a  brim¬ 
ming  glass  of  Malvoisie;  for  dinner,  soup,  two  kinds  of 
boiled  meats,  cheese,  and  wine;  for  supper,  a  roast,  two 
dishes  again  of  boiled  meats,  and  cheese;  and  two  hours 
later  a  cup  of  wine.” 

The  voyage  to  Gaeta  lasted  five  days.  In  company  with 
several  fellow  travellers,  including  a  mother  and  daughter, 
Ignatius  started  on  foot  for  Rome.  They  begged  their  way. 
The  first  night  they  lodged  at  a  farm,  the  women  in  the 
house,  Ignatius  in  the  stable.  At  midnight  he  was  roused 
by  cries  of  the  women  that  they  were  assaulted.  He  rushed 
to  their  rescue,  shouting,  “Shall  we  submit  to  this?”  fright¬ 
ened  off  the  assailants  and  got  the  women  away.  The  pil¬ 
grims  took  to  the  road  in  the  dark.  They  reached  some 
town,  but  finding  the  gates  locked,  slept  in  a  church.  The 
next  morning  they  had  nothing  to  eat  and  were  still  ex¬ 
cluded  from  the  town  for  fear  of  the  pest  which  at  that 
time  ravaged  the  country.  Ignatius  was  exhausted  and 
could  not  walk,  the  others  went  on.  By  good  luck  a  great 
lady  passed  that  way,  and  procured  his  admission  to  the 
town,  where  alms  were  given  him ;  and  after  two  days’  rest, 
he  was  able  to  proceed  to  Rome.  He  arrived  there  on  Palm 
Sunday,  and  stayed  about  a  fortnight;  he  visited  the  seven 
churches,  saw  Pope  Adrian  officiate,  and  then  started  on 
for  Venice,  where  he  intended  to  take  ship  for  Jaffa.  At 
Rome  he  must  have  heard  the  alarming  news  that  the  Turks 


46 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


had  captured  the  island  of  Rhodes,  that  they  were  shout¬ 
ing  “Italy!  Italy!  On  to  Rome!”  that  their  spies  had 
just  been  caught  in  the  city,  that  some  of  the  rich  inhabi¬ 
tants  frightened  out  of  their  wits  were  preparing  to  leave, 
and  how  the  Pope  had  levied  taxes  for  a  crusade  and  was 
trying  to  rouse  Europe  to  the  common  peril.  Naturally 
enough  people  sought  to  persuade  him  to  abandon  so  fool¬ 
hardy  a  pilgrimage.  Nothing,  however,  but  a  direct  com¬ 
mand  from  some  ecclesiastical  authority  ever  deterred 
Ignatius  from  his  purpose.  He  yielded,  however,  to  friendly 
apprehension  so  far  as  to  accept  some  money  for  his  journey, 
but  soon  felt  ashamed  of  this  lack  of  faith  in  Providence 
and  gave  it  away.  St.  Francis  had  been  wedded  to  Lady 
Poverty,  and  why  not  he? 

The  journey  to  Venice  was  hard.  He  was  feeble  and  ill; 
he  could  speak  neither  Italian  nor  Latin ;  he  could  not  keep 
the  pace  of  his  fellow  pedestrians;  his  purse  was  quite 
empty;  shut  out  of  towns  from  fear  of  the  pest,  he  slept 
in  the  open,  or  at  best  in  the  portico  of  some  church.  At 
the  boundaries  of  the  Venetian  state  he  had  his  reward,  for 
Christ  appeared  to  him  in  a  vision,  to  his  great  consolation ; 
and  when  he  reached  Padua,  he  was  permitted  to  enter 
(through  divine  interposition,  as  he  believed)  without  a 
health  certificate,  and  again  at  Venice,  although  other 
travellers  were  obliged  to  present  theirs.  At  Venice,  he 
slept  on  the  piazza  of  St.  Mark’s,  continued  his  practice  of 
begging  his  food,  and  did  nothing  towards  finding  a  way  to 
make  the  voyage  to  Jaffa.  Was  not  his  life  of  more  value 
than  many  sparrows?  His  faith  was  his  fortune;  he  felt 
an  inward  certitude  that  God  would  provide,  and  his  faith 
was  justified.  One  day  a  rich  Spaniard  accosted  him,  asked 
what  he  was  doing,  what  he  wanted,  and  took  him  to  his 
own  house. 

In  Venice,  as  in  Rome,  people  tried  to  persuade  him  to 
forego  his  dangerous  pilgrimage,  but  he  said  that  if  a  single 
plank  should  cross  the  sea  to  the  Holy  Land  he  would  go 
upon  it.  And  his  host,  who  had  taken  a  great  liking  to  him, 
just  as  both  men  and  women  had  done  at  Manresa  and 
Barcelona,  for  there  was  something  very  attractive  in  this 


PILGRIMAGE  TO  JERUSALEM 


47 


little  Spaniard  with  his  mixture  of  humility  and  authority, 
dignity  and  graciousness,  kept  him  in  his  house  and  pro¬ 
cured  for  him  an  audience  with  the  Doge,  so  that  he  might 
obtain  permission  for  the  voyage.  The  sea  was  dangerous, 
Turkish  corsairs  were  abroad,  and  space  on  shipboard  was 
very  scarce.  The  Doge,  however,  granted  him  passage  on 
a  government  ship  bound  for  Cyprus.  On  the  day  of  sail¬ 
ing,  July  14,  1523,  Ignatius  was  ill  and  miserable,  and  the 
physicians  bade  him  go  aboard  if  he  wished  his  body  to  be 
buried.  He  went,  however;  and,  lo  and  behold,  a  fit  of  sea¬ 
sickness  made  him  feel  much  better.  In  these  unexpected 
deliverances  Ignatius  perceived  the  providence  of  God. 

Four  Spaniards,  three  Switzers  and  a  Tyrolese  were  fellow 
pilgrims  with  him.  On  board  ship  certain  vile  doings  came 
to  light,  and  Ignatius  rebuked  the  evil  doers.  The  Spaniards 
on  board  begged  him  to  hold  his  tongue,  but  he  spoke  out 
roundly.  The  sailors  said  that  they  would  put  him  ashore 
at  the  first  land  sighted;  but  by  God’s  grace  the  first  land 
was  Cyprus.  Here  he  was  transferred  to  a  pilgrim’s  ship 
for  the  rest  of  the  voyage.  All  this  time  visions  of  Christ 
kept  appearing  to  him.  The  ship  reached  Jaffa  on  Septem¬ 
ber  4th.  The  pilgrims  procured  donkeys  and  rode  to  Jeru¬ 
salem.  As  they  drew  near,  a  Spaniard  in  the  company 
called  out:  “Soon  we  shall  see  the  Holy  City;  it  will  be 
well  to  prepare  our  hearts.”  They  dismounted,  and  gave 
themselves  to  solemn  thought,  and,  when  the  towers  of 
Zion  appeared,  they  felt  a  consoling  happiness  that  seemed 
beyond  the  power  of  nature  to  confer. 

In  Jerusalem  he  put  up  at  the  Franciscan  monastery. 
Ignatius  had  meant,  as  he  believed,  to  stay  and  save  the 
souls  of  infidels,  but  whether  his  zeal  betrayed  itself  too 
openly,  and  excited  apprehensions  that  he  would  get  him¬ 
self  and  others  into  trouble,  or  whether  Providence  was 
directing  his  life  on  another  path,  the  prior  of  the  monastery 
refused  him  permission,  representing  the  danger  to  his 
liberty  or  even  to  his  life.  Ignatius  protested,  said  he  would 
be  no  burden,  that  he  would  beg  his  food,  all  he  asked  was 
a  roof.  The  prior  was  inexorable;  he  stated  that  his 
ecclesiastical  authority  was  absolute,  and  that  he  was  ready 


48 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


to  produce  the  official  documents  conferring  it.  Ignatius 
replied  humbly  that  that  was  not  necessary,  he  would  obey. 
So  he  returned  to  Jaffa  and  took  ship  by  way  of  Cyprus 
for  Venice. 

One  anecdote  of  his  stay  in  Jerusalem  displays  again  the 
mediceval  character  of  his  religion.  Before  leaving  for  good 
he  wished  to  make  one  last  visit  to  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
and  see  once  more  the  marks  of  his  Saviour's  feet  imprinted 
upon  the  stone  from  which  He  ascended  into  Heaven.  He 
went  privily,  without  guide  or  permit.  This  was  contrary 
to  the  Turkish  rules ;  he  ran  the  risk  of  arrest  as  a  spy.  He 
had  no  money,  but  the  gift  of  his  pocket  knife  bribed  the 
guard  to  let  him  in,  but  after  coming  out  he  could  not 
remember  which  way  the  imprints  pointed.  His  scissors 
procured  him  readmission.  As  he  started  homeward,  a 
man,  sent  after  him  by  the  alarmed  friars,  hurried  up  in 
hot  haste,  scowling  and  brandishing  his  stick,  caught  him 
rudely  by  the  arm  and  led  him  back  to  the  convent.  Noth¬ 
ing  mattered  to  Ignatius,  for  on  the  way  back  he  beheld  a 
vision  of  Christ  hovering  above  him. 

This  devotion  to  physical  objects  consecrated  by  associa¬ 
tion  wTith  religion — whether  places  or  things,  whether 
reminiscent  of  Christ  or  of  the  saints— seems  to  be  derived 
from  primitive  beliefs  in  magic  and  fetiches.  Of  course, 
a  belief  may  spring  from  an  unreasonable  origin,  and  yet 
be  justified  by  reason.  Physical  sensibilities  were  originally 
fashioned  upon  the  concrete,  and  things  perceptible  domi¬ 
nated  the  animal  mind  for  ages  before  the  abstract  began 
to  exercise  sway  over  habits  of  thought.  We  cannot  cut 
loose  from  the  inheritance  of  that  long  domination.  A  god 
endowed  with  abstract  qualities  only,  who  never  reveals 
himself,  who  leaves  no  divine  fragrance  clinging  to  some 
physical  object,  soon  ceases  to  be  a  god.  Abstract  truth, 
abstract  beauty,  affect  only  the  trained  philosopher.  Sight, 
sound  or  touch  are  necessary  to  conjure  those  divine  essences 
down  into  the  world  of  daily  life.  An  image,  an  idol,  a 
shrine,  helps  the  sluggish  imagination  to  a  more  vivid  con¬ 
ception  of  spiritual  things.  For  this  reason,  statues,  relics, 
pictures — half  symbols,  half  memorials — have  ethical  and 


PILGRIMAGE  TO  JERUSALEM 


49 


spiritual  values.  A  photograph  will  stiffen  a  man's  upper 
lip.  Primitive  men  were  comforted  and  strengthened  by 
stocks  and  stones;  we  look  to  the  mountains  or  lift  up  our 
eyes  to  the  stars.  Human  experiences  remain  constant; 
the  interpretation  varies.  In  all  such  experiences  of  help 
and  strength,  the  influence  exerted  lies  somewhere  between 
sentiment  at  one  extreme  and  magic  at  the  other.  At  the 
extreme  of  magic,  it  is  necessary  to  go  through  the  right 
motions,  repeat  the  right  formula,  and  the  gift  is  granted. 
The  door  will  open  only  at  the  cry  “Open  Sesame.”  This, 
after  all,  is  the  law  in  the  physical  world;  no  piety  influ¬ 
ences  nature,  but  at  the  magical  act,  performed  by  a  Morse, 
an  Edison,  a  Marconi,  spirits  of  the  air  and  the  earth  be¬ 
come  obedient  servants  to  the  will  of  man.  At  the  other 
end  of  the  scale,  the  passion  of  a  contrite  heart  generates 
ethical  or  spiritual  energy  within.  In  most  people  of  re¬ 
ligious  desires,  spiritual  yearning  blends  with  a  half  confi¬ 
dence  in  magic,  or,  at  least,  with  a  blind  hope  that  from 
behind  the  veil  of  that  which  seems  will  start  up  a  sudden 
power  to  demolish  whatever  troubles  them,  and  in  its  place 
set  up  a  new  order  that  shall  comfort  and  satisfy.  Such 
notions  are  far  older  than  Christianity ;  the  Greeks  had  their 
sacramental  rites,  their  mysteries  which,  rightly  performed, 
would  ease  the  blows  of  fate  or  give  immortal  life.  In 
Loyola's  case  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  his  passionate  yearn¬ 
ing  for  spiritual  communion  with  his  God,  and  yet  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  he  believed  that  his  spiritual  salvation 
would  be  far  better  assured  if  he  knew  the  right  formula. 
This  seems  to  be  the  teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  per¬ 
haps,  as  men  are  not  creatures  of  reason,  it  is  a  wise,  a 
necessary,  teaching;  possibly,  it  is  true.  Our  ordinary  con¬ 
ception  of  spiritual  progress  postulates  pain,  repentance  and 
good  resolutions,  but  perhaps  the  mere  expectation  of 
being  lifted  up  to  that  higher  ethical  or  spiritual  state  by 
the  power  of  the  true  formula,  may  have  an  equal  efficacy. 

Loyola  believed,  I  think,  that  his  vision  of  Christ  on  the 
way  back  from  the  Mount  of  Olives  was  not  only  a  mark  of 
Christ’s  sympathy  and  approbation,  but  a  sort  of  necessary 
consequence  from  his  solicitude  to  see  exactly  how  the 


50 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


imprints  of  Christ’s  feet  were  engraven  in  the  rock.  Never¬ 
theless  (I  had  better  say  it  here),  our  lack  of  sympathy 
with  Loyola’s  devotional  practices,  is  not  due  to  his  reliance 
on  magical  formulae,  but  to  a  certain  baldness  and  aridity 
that  comes  from  the  lack  of  poetry.  The  defect  lay  in  him, 
and  not  in  his  creed.  The  grace  of  poetry  may  attend  upon 
a  belief  in  formulae  as  well  as  upon  a  passionate  emotion. 
In  the  case  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  as  the  shadows  of 
bracken  fall  on  the  turf  beneath  and  give  an  added  grace 
to  the  shafts  of  light  that  have  made  their  way  between 
its  fronds,  so  Francis’s  belief  in  miracles  serves  but  to 
heighten  the  beauty  of  his  passionate  yearning  to  imitate 
his  Master  and  live  the  life  of  the  spirit.  With  Ignatius 
it  is  not  so,  and  the  Jesuit  biographers,  in  order  to  supply 
this  absence  of  poetry,  lay  too  heavy  a  stress,  according  to 
my  way  of  thinking,  upon  the  reports  of  miraculous  occur¬ 
rences  and  the  contortions  of  his  spirit  in  travail  with 
penitence  and  aspiration. 

To  return  to  Loyola’s  narrative.  At  Jaffa,  he  was  refused 
passage  on  two  ships,  and  went  aboard  a  third  that  appeared 
the  least  staunch  of  the  three;  but  Providence  kept  watch 
over  it,  whereas  the  other  two  perished  on  the  homeward 
way.  His  ship  reached  Venice  in  January,  1524.  The 
Memoirs  say  nothing  of  his  stay  there  at  this  time.  On 
his  way  from  Venice  to  Genoa,  he  met  with  sundry  adven¬ 
tures,  which  he  tells,  as  an  old  man  will,  because  he  remem¬ 
bered  of  what  great  moment  they  were  to  him  at  the  time, 
and  therefore,  out  of  indulgent  sympathy  for  his  inexperi¬ 
enced  youth,  interested  him  still,  rather  than  that  he 
attached  importance  to  them.  In  the  cathedral  at  Ferrara 
he  distributed  among  a  crowd  of  beggars  all  the  alms  that 
had  been  given  him  in  Venice  for  his  journey.  And,  further 
on  his  way,  he  fell  in  with  the  Imperial  army  and  then 
with  the  French,  in  the  midst  of  their  tedious  and  inter¬ 
minable  wars  for  the  duchy  of  Milan,  and  ran  a  fair  chance 
of  being  hanged  as  a  spy.  At  one  place  he  was  let  go  be¬ 
cause  the  commander  thought  him  underwitted;  and  some¬ 
where  the  soldiers  mocked  and  buffeted  him,  but  the 
thought  that  he,  even  in  humblest  measure,  had  been 


PILGRIMAGE  TO  JERUSALEM 


51 


judged  worthy  to  experience  maltreatment  similar  to 
Christ’s,  gave  him  great  consolation.  At  last  he  reached 
Genoa,  and  embarked  for  Barcelona,  but  even  then  his 
dangers  were  not  over,  for  Andrea  Doria,  the  famous 
Genoese  admiral,  for  the  nonce  fighting  on  the  French  side, 
pursued  his  ship.  The  importance  of  these  adventures  lies 
in  the  impression  made  upon  his  mind  by  his  escapes,  lead¬ 
ing  him  to  believe  that  God  was  guiding  and  protecting 
him.  Perhaps,  a  voice  angelical  sounded  in  his  ear: 

Se  tu  segui  tua  stella, 

Non  puoi  fallire  a  glorioso  porto, 

Following  thy  star 
Thou  canst  not  fail  of  haven  glorious. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  REFORMATION  AND  RENAISSANCE 

Ignatius  had  been  away  from  Spain  for  about  twelve 
months.  This  W anderjahr  proved  to  be  a  revolutionary 
education.  He  turned  his  back  on  an  apostolic  life,  and 
started  on  the  long  road  to  a  university  degree.  It  is  true 
that  for  fifteen  years,  on  the  surface  at  least,  he  adhered 
to  his  early  project  of  going  to  Jerusalem,  and  laid  that 
project  down  as  the  basis  for  the  permanent  association  of 
his  disciples;  and  yet,  it  is  very  difficult  to  understand  why 
he  should  think  that,  in  order  to  convert  the  Turk,  an 
elaborate  instruction  in  the  humanities,  in  philosophy  and 
theology,  would  be  of  advantage.  There  was  nothing  in 
his  experience  in  Jerusalem  to  lead  him  to  infer  that  the 
infidels  would  yield  to  a  scholastic  exposition  of  Christian 
dogma,  when  they  were  deaf  to  the  simple  beauty  and 
pathos  of  Christ’s  own  teaching.  The  end  and  the  prepara¬ 
tion  seem  to  be  at  odds.  I  think  that  the  man’s  extraor¬ 
dinary  tenacity  of  purpose  held  tight  hold  of  his  conscious 
intentions,  but  that  underneath,  in  that  psychical  laboratory 
that  evades  the  waking  consciousness,  in  the  arriere- 
boutique  of  his  mind,  the  experiences  of  his  foreign  travels 
were  gradually  shaping  a  conception  of  the  policy  that  he 
finally  in  fact  did  pursue.  This  complete  rearrangement  of 
his  plan,  the  putting  aside  of  St.  Francis’s  example,  of  the 
joyful  preaching  of  the  gospel  out  of  a  passionate  heart,  and 
the  substitution  of  Thomas  Aquinas  and  conventional  edu¬ 
cation,  grammar  school,  colleges  in  Spain,  the  University  of 
Paris,  twelve  years  in  all,  was  due  to  his  new  knowledge  of 
the  world,  or,  to  be  more  precise,  of  the  two  great  move¬ 
ments  that  affected  educated  men,  the  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation. 


52 


THE  REFORMATION  AND  RENAISSANCE 


53 


It  is  appropriate  here  to  make  some  reference  to  both 
those  movements,  for  it  will  appear,  I  think,  that  the 
formative!  influence  acting  upon  .Ignatius  at  this  time!, 
persuading  him  to  the  course  he  took,  was  repugnance  to 
the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  far  more  than  opposition  to 
the  Reformation.  He  saw  the  effects  of  the  Renaissance  in 
Italy,  whereas  of  Germany  and  German  affairs  he  was 
wholly  ignorant.  I  lay  stress  upon  this,  for  we  are  apt  to 
think  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  as  one  of  the  main  factors, 
perhaps  the  most  influential,  in  that  revival  of  vigor  within 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  usually  known  as  the  Counter 
Reformation,  which  displayed  itself  in  all  Latin  countries, 
but  chiefly  in  Italy,  after  the  Protestant  secession  had 
roused  the  Catholic  world.  The  instinct  of  self-preserva¬ 
tion,  loyalty  to  the  unity  of  Christendom,  devotion  to  what 
the  Church  held  to  be  the  truth,  wounded  pride  and  the 
mere  joy  of  combat,  brought  to  the  front  able  and  high- 
minded  Catholics,  who  in  the  earlier  period  of  self-indul¬ 
gence  and  Roman  riot,  had  been  pushed  aside  or  left 
unregarded,  and  enabled  adherents  of  the  old  order,  under 
the  lead  of  Spain,  “to  keep  back,”  in  the  words  of  Menendez 
y  Pelayo,  “the  northern  flood  within  the  dykes  it  has  never 
since  passed,  and  to  save  Spain,  Italy  and  France  from  the 
Lutheran  infection.”  During  this  struggle  of  self-defense 
and  counter  attack  the  Jesuit  Fathers  furnished  the  van¬ 
guard,  often  the  forlorn  hope.  (  But  one  must  not  carry  back 
the  situation  of  1556,  the  date  of  Loyola’s  death,  when  his 
Society  was  an  active  power,  north,  south,  east  and  west,  to 
this  present  year  1524,  when  he  returned  to  Barcelona.  To 
make  this  clear,  and  for  the  sake  of  bringing  the  general 
situation  before  our  minds,  I  will  refer  briefly  to  the  religious 
movement  in  Germany  and  then  to  the  intellectual  condi¬ 
tion  of  Italy. 

It  is  convenient  and  reasonably  accurate  to  ascribe  the 
first  beginning  of  the  Protestant  schism  to  the  sharp  issue 
raised  by  the  sale  of  indulgences.  Underneath,  larger 
causes  of  disruption  had  been  at  work,  national  sentiment 
indignant  at  foreign  ecclesiastical  tyranny,  as  the  discon¬ 
tented  termed  it,  moral  revolt  at  the  vicious  lives  of  prelates, 


54 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


priests  and  monks,  democratical  dissatisfaction  that  the 
bishoprics  should  be  but  chattels  of  the  great  nobility,  un¬ 
willingness  to  pay  taxes  to  the  Roman  curia,  anger  at  the 
papal  judicial  system,  and  so  forth;  and,  long  before  this, 
frequent  protests,  not  without  ample  justification,  had  made 
themselves  heard  in  Germany  and  elsewhere,  against  the 
doings  of  the  Church.  The  danger  of  schism  had  been 
threatening  enough,  but  until  this  time,  when  the  human¬ 
ists,  with  their  pagan  interests,  their  speculations  and  their 
indifference  to  Christianity  had  prepared  the  way  for  a 
rending  asunder,  the  unity  of  the  Church  had  managed  to 
maintain  itself.  The  doctrine  of  indulgences  had  not  up  till 
then  been  the  point  of  danger;  it  had  been  generally,  if  not 
universally,  believed  in  and  accepted.  The  doctrine  is  this: 
The  merits  of  Christ  more  than  suffice  to  redeem  the  sin  of 
Adam,  and  this  superfluity  constitutes  a  great  treasure  ready 
to  be  applied  to  the  needs  of  sinners.  The  saints  also  have 
contributed  their  extra  sum  to  the  general  store.  In  its 
essence  the  doctrine  is  true.  Christ’s  goodness  still  serves 
to  wash  away  the  sins  of  men,  and  the  virtues  of  saints  sup¬ 
port  waverers  and  raise  up  many  that  fall.  It  is  the 
property  of  one  man’s  goodness  to  help  and  strengthen  his 
neighbor.  Because  my  friend  forbears,  I  am  enabled  to 
forbear;  because  he  turns  his  back  on  temptation  my  feet 
are  brave  to  keep  the  narrow  way.  Take  St.  Ignatius  him¬ 
self.  It  is  not  a  mere  allegory  to  say,  that  his  doings  have 
heaped  up  stores  in  a  treasure  house,  that  are  lent  to  the 
poor  without  usury.  His  example  is  like  the  grasp  of  a 
helping  hand,  his  Spiritual  Exercises  enable  many  to  unbar 
the  door  that  shuts  them  from  a  love  of  God.  The  Church, 
however,  went  further  than  this  doctrine,  and  ascribed  to 
the  successors  of  St.  Peter  the  power  of  giving  or  withhold¬ 
ing  the  alms  of  superabundant  righteousness.  Such  an 
addition  may  be,  perhaps,  open  to  question.  Anyhow,  the 
Church  took  that  position.  But  the  Church  did  not  profess 
to  give  these  alms  except  to  the  penitent.  A  contrite  heart 
was  an  indispensable  prerequisite;  and  good  works  were, 
naturally  enough,  the  best  evidence  of  repentance  and  a 
resolution  to  do  better.  Unfortunately  in  practice  the  pre- 


THE  REFORMATION  AND  RENAISSANCE 


55 


requisite  good  deeds  shrunk  and  shrivelled  into  the  mere 
payment  of  money.  Buying  and  selling  polluted  the  temple 
of  the  Lord. 

Perhaps  the  Papacy  had  an  itching  palm.  At  any  rate 
Leo  X,  who,  quite  apart  from  the  expenses  incident  to  main¬ 
taining  the  papal  dominion  over  sundry  Italian  cities,  was 
put  to  considerable  outlay  in  paying  for  his  hunting  lodge 
at  La  Magliana,  for  Latin  and  Greek  manuscripts,  for 
jewels,  and  for  the  encouragement  of  art,  needed  large  sums 
of  money  for  the  construction  of  the  new  basilica  of  St. 
Peter’s,  on  which  Bramante,  Raphael  and  others  had  spent 
and  were  to  spend  their  genius.  In  order  to  procure  money 
for  this  purpose  he  issued  indulgences.  The  details  of  the 
story  need  not  be  retold  here.  I  will  confine  myself  to  one 
quotation  from  a  proclamation  hawked  about  by  pardoners: 
“Whoever  puts  into  the  box  a  tester  for  a  soul  in  Purgatory, 
at  once  sets  that  soul  free,  and  the  soul  infallibly  goes  to 
Paradise ;  so,  by  putting  in  2  testers  for  2  souls,  or  1000  for  a 
1000  souls,  they  go  forthwith  to  Paradise.”  These  indul¬ 
gences  were  hawked  about  Germany,  as  a  mountebank 
might  sell  lottery  tickets  at  a  county  fair.  All  persons  of 
religious  mind  were  of  one  accord  on  this  practice;  and 
Luther  became  their  spokesman.  Satirists  joined  in  the 
attack.  A  passage  from  a  Spanish  classic  of  Loyola’s  time, 
Lazarillo  de  Tormes,  may  serve  to  indicate  the  popular  * 
opinion  in  Spain. 

Lazarillo  is  a  poor  little  boy  cast  on  the  world  for  a  living. 
He  takes  service  with  an  itinerant  friar  who  travels  about 
selling  indulgences.  This  friar  made  a  practice,  on  entering 
a  village,  of  giving  little  presents  to  the  priests  so  that  they 
should  commend  him  to  their  parishioners.  If  he  thought 
the  priests  knew  Latin  he  spoke  to  them  in  Spanish,  but  if 
they  were  reverendos,  that  is,  better  furnished  with  money 
than  with  scholarship,  he  discoursed  for  hours  in  what  he 
called  Latin.  Nevertheless,  in  a  certain  town,  he  had  no 
luck  at  all,  not  a  soul  would  buy.  Not  discouraged,  he 
arranged  to  be  present  at  service  in  church  on  Sunday. 
Saturday  evening  he  and  the  alguazil  dined  together  at  the 
inn.  At  dessert,  all  of  a  sudden,  they  fell  into  a  quarrel, 


56 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


called  one  another  names,  shouted  curses,  snatched  weapons, 
and  made  such  an  uproar  that  all  the  town-folk  gathered 
about  them.  The  two  were  parted  with  difficulty,  the 
alguazil  bellowing  that  the  friar  was  a  fraud.  The  next  day 
the  church  was  crowded.  The  friar  got  up  in  the  pulpit  and 
exhorted  the  people  to  buy  indulgences  and  shorten  the  tor¬ 
ments  which  their  relations  and  friends  were  suffering  in 
Purgatory.  In  the  midst  of  his  passionate  exposition,  the 
alguazil  entered  with  great  bustle,  and  bawled  out  loud  that 
the  friar  was  a  cheat,  a  scurvy  knave,  and  that  his  bulls 
were  bogus.  Some  pious  folk  started  to  put  the  calumniator 
out,  but  the  friar  raised  his  hand,  bidding  no  man  touch  him, 
and  then  fell  on  his  knees  and,  rolling  his  eyes  to  heaven, 
entreated  God  to  judge  between  them;  if  he  were  a  cheat 
let  the  ground  open  and  swallow  him  up,  but  if  the  bulls 
were  genuine  let  it  so  appear  by  a  miracle.  Hardly  had  he 
spoken,  when  the  alguazil  fell  down  with  a  bang,  foamed  at 
the  mouth,  writhed  and  wriggled  in  a  frenzy.  The  crowd 
tried  to  seize  him  but  he  kicked  and  struggled  like  one 
possessed.  The  friar  remained  kneeling,  lost  in  divine  con¬ 
templation.  Several  people  ran  up  and  besought  him  to 
save  the  poor  sinner  who  was  dying,  since  it  was  plain  that 
he  was  a  liar,  that  the  friar  was  innocent  and  that  the  bulls 
were  full  of  salvation.  This  brought  the  friar  back  to  earth, 
and  he  prayed  aloud  for  the  sinner.  The  alguazil  slowly 
came  to  his  senses,  crawled  to  the  altar,  and  asked  forgive¬ 
ness,  pleading  that  he  had  been  possessed  by  a  devil,  who 
was  trying  to  forestall  the  immense  good  that  the  bulls 
would  do.  And  so  on.  The  bulls  were  bought  like  hot 
cakes.  Of  course  the  pair  were  in  collusion. 

If  this  was  the  way  in  which  orthodox,  pious  Spaniards 
spoke  of  indulgences,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that  Germans 
might  pass  from  speech  to  action.  So  they  did.  When 
Tetzel,  the  Dominican  friar,  came  peddling  indulgences  near 
Wittenberg,  Martin  Luther  posted  on  the  door  of  the  parish 
church  ninety-five  heads  under  which  he  offered  to  debate 
their  value.  This  was  the  famous  year,  1517,  when,  as 
Father  Ribadeneira  says,  Luterus  ab  obedientia  ecclesice  ad 
castra  diaboli  descivit.  A  year  later  came  his  debate  with 


THE  REFORMATION  AND  RENAISSANCE 


57 


Eck.  In  1520  Pope  Leo  issued  his  bull  of  condemnation; 
Luther  burned  it  in  the  public  square  at  Wittenberg,  and 
the  Pope  excommunicated  him.  A  month  or  two  later  the 
young  Emperor  held  an  Imperial  diet  at  Worms.  Luther 
attended  under  a  safe-conduct  and  pleaded  his  cause;  the 
Spaniards  present  broke  into  groans  and  hisses,  the  Ger¬ 
mans  into  applause.  The  conclusion  was  foregone ;  Luther 
was  put  under  the  ban  of  the  Empire.  “This  year/’  as  he 
afterwards  said,  “by  God’s  grace  the  holy  light  of  Christian 
truth,  formerly  suppressed  by  the  Pope  and  his  followers, 
has  been  rekindled,  by  which  their  manifold  and  noxious 
corruption  and  tyranny  has  been  laid  bare  and  scotched. 
So  that  it  looks  as  if  tumults  would  arise,  and  parsons, 
monks,  bishops  and  the  whole  spiritual  estate  hunted  out 
and  smitten,  unless  they  apply  themselves  earnestly  to  their 
improvement.”  He  spoke  sooth.  From  this  time  on,  the  split 
grew  steadily  wider;  the  Protestant  doctrines,  grace,  faith, 
predestination,  were  cried  up,  and  old  beliefs  in  priesthood, 
celibacy,  purgatory,  transubstantiation,  the  Virgin,  saints  \ 
and  images,  were  denounced  and  ridiculed.  Insult  and  in¬ 
jury  went  hand  in  hand.  The  Protestant  enthusiasts  called 
the  Mother  Church  all  sorts  of  rude  names, — “from  the  evils 
of  this  dragon  had  been  begotten  the  scum  and  venom  of  all 
sorts  of  idolatry”  and  so  forth.  Christian  Europe  was  rent 
asunder. 

By  the  time  Ignatius  travelled  through  Italy,  the 
Lutheran  rebellion  was  afoot;  but  except  for  Luther  and 
his  friends,  few  understood  the  significance  of  it.  The  very 
name  Protestant  did  not  come  into  being  for  years.  The 
Italians  expected  this  heresy  to  die  out  as  so  many  others 
had  done,  and  Spaniards  were  probably  more  in  the  dark 
than  the  Italians ;  they  were  taken  up  with  their  own  affairs, 
and  had  for  the  most  part  a  simple  notion  of  religion  as  a 
war  between  Christians  and  Mussulmans.  Charles  was  as 
yet  only  King  of  Spain  when  Luther  nailed  up  his  ninety- 
five  theses,  and  had  enough  discontent  at  home  upon  his 
hands  without  thinking  of  outside  troubles.  His  imperial 
election  took  place  while  Luther  and  Eck  were  debating  at 
Leipzig,  and  he  did  not  realize  the  serious  character  of  the 


58 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


heretical  movement  until  the  Diet  of  Worms.  The  Span¬ 
iards  in  attendance  there  had  an  opportunity  to  learn  some¬ 
thing  of  the  situation;  but  at  home  there  was  scarce  an 
inkling  of  what  was  to  happen.  It  is  true  that  a  tew  weeks 
before  the  siege  of  Pamplona,  Leo  X  had  addressed  a  brief 
to  the  authorities  in  Castile  warning  them  against  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  Lutheran  books,  which,  it  was  feared,  had  been 
smuggled  into  Spain  during  the  preceding  twelve  months; 
and  Cardinal  Adrian,  then  regent  in  the  King’s  absence, 
acting  upon  the  Pope’s  suggestion,  bade  the  inquisitors  lay 
hold  on  what  books  of  such  character  they  could.  Also,  in 
1523  it  seems  that  somebody  suspected  that  heresy  might 
filter  in  from  the  southwest  corner  of  France,  for  orders  were 
issued  to  the  Corregidor  of  Guipuscoa  to  exercise  the  great¬ 
est  vigilance.  And  in  June  of  the  next  year,  a  ship  hailing 
from  Flanders,  or  some  port  infected  with  heresy,  and  bound 
for  Valencia,  was  wrecked  off  the  north  coast  of  Spain,  and 
two  casks  filled  with  Lutheran  books  were  discovered  in  the 
cargo;  these  were  seized;  and  in  the  official  report  of  the 
seizure  it  is  said  that  the  whole  country-side  was  talking  of 
the  matter.  This  is  virtually  all  the  evidence  concerning 
Spanish  interest  in  Luther  at  this  time.  There  may  have 
been  some  curiosity  over  the  new  doctrines  in  Valencia,  and 
perhaps  in  Barcelona  and  other  ports,  but  there  were  no 
avowed  Lutherans,  and  none  were  brought  before  the  In¬ 
quisition  until  thirty  years  afterwards.  Erasmus  had  many 
followers  among  the  intellectuals;  but  that  was  quite  a 
different  matter.  It  is  most  unlikely  that  Ignatius,  while  a 
soldier  in  Navarre,  ever  heard  it  suggested  that  Luther  was 
a  person  of  importance.  Probably  he  did  not  know  his  name, 
until  he  went  to  Venice.  Even  then,  and  after  his  return  to 
Spain,  and  I  think  all  his  life,  he  never  looked  upon  Protest¬ 
antism  as  a  separate  issue,  certainly  not  as  the  special 
object  of  the  Society’s  efforts,  but  rather  as  an  incidental 
consequence  of  the  principle  of  disobedience,  a  disease  to  be 
cured  by  increasing  the  health  of  the  whole  Christian  body 
and  not  by  local  treatment,  and  Protestants  as  merely  one 
among  many  classes  of  the  wayward. 

The  Italian  Renaissance,  on  the  other  hand,  as  I  think, 


THE  REFORMATION  AND  RENAISSANCE 


59 


appeared  to  him  as  an  insidious  and  very  dangerous  enemy. 
To  us  of  today  the  term  Italian  Renaissance,  calls  up  a 
prodigal  abundance  of  princely  palaces,  arched  and  arcaded 
churches,  frescoed  walls,  fountains,  monuments,  galleries  of 
pictures  and  statues.  We  think  of  all  the  glittering  throng 
that  pass  over  Vasari’s  pages,  from  Masaccio,  Brunelleschi, 
Ghiberti,  to  Leonardo,  Bramante,  Raphael  and  Michel¬ 
angelo,  to  Sansovino  and  the  Venetian  masters  ;  we  think  of 
Popes,  princes,  patrons,  told  of  in  Burckhardt,  Symonds, 
Creighton,  Pastor,  and  the  thousand  modern  tellers  of  that 
wonderful  story,  of  Nicholas  V,  Sixtus  IV,  Julius  II,  Leo  X, 
of  Medicis  and  Borgias,  of  Estes,  Sforzas,  Gonzagas,  of  poets 
and  men  of  letters,  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  Poliziano,  Pico 
della  Mirandola,  Boiardo,  Ariosto,  Tasso,  Castiglione, 
Guicciardini,  Macchiavelli,  and  all  the  rest  who  set  the 
crown  of  intellectual  supremacy  upon  Italy.  As  we  look 
back  history  is  foreshortened,  and  these  men  of  the  quattro¬ 
cento  and  cinquecento  seem  to  rub  elbows,  so  many  were 
there  in  so  brief  a  time  and  so  limited  a  space.  We  must 
correct  that  impression;  nevertheless,  it  is  hard  to  realize 
that  a  man  could  wander  among  them,  could  walk  through 
the  garden  of  Italy,  as  a  philosopher  might  “with  unuplifted 
eyes’ ’  pace  up  and  down  some  gravelled  walk  in  a  garden  of 
flowers,  and  never  see  or  smell  a  blossom.  The  French 
cavaliers  who  crossed  the  Alps  with  Charles  VIII  burst  out 
with  their  delight,  “C’est  un  Paradis  terrestre!”  Nothing, 
however,  that  Ignatius  says,  nothing  that  is  said  of  him, 
implies  the  slightest  interest  in  the  handiwork  of  men,  none 
in  the  creations  of  nature,  unless  it  were  to  point  a  moral. 

Rome,  at  the  time  of  his  visit,  was  a  most  magnificent 
city.  There  was  no  suspicion  of  the  hordes,  crueller  than 
those  of  Alaric  or  Attila,  that  were  soon  to  destroy  the  full 
fruitage  of  that  magnificence  forever.  She  was  indeed 
shrunken  from  the  days  of  her  ancient  glory;  vineyards, 
olive  trees,  ivy  clothed  the  slopes  where  Caesars  and  Sena¬ 
tors  once  lived,  the  forums  where  the  conquerors  of  the 
world  had  taken  their  ease.  She  was  no  more  “a  princess 
among  provinces,”  but  art  was  making  her  all  glorious 
within.  Raphael  was  dead,  but  the  records  of  his  genius 


60 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


were  there  in  all  their  grace  and  loveliness  ;  Bramante  was 
dead,  but  the  designs  for  St.  Peter’s  basilica  bore  witness 
that  he  had  not  lived  in  vain;  Pinturicchio  was  dead,  and 
old  Perugino  was  painting  his  last  frescoes  in  the  Castello  di 
Fortignano,  yet  both  had  left  their  sign  manual  in  the 
Vatican;  Michelangelo  had  gone  back  to  Florence,  but  the 
frescoes  in  the  Sistine  Chapel  are  still  the  most  splendid  in 
the  world ;  Baldassare  Peruzzi,  Sebastiano  del  Piombo, 
Sodoma,  Giulio  Romano,  Sangallo,  and  their  fellow  artists, 
for  the  moment  lacked  patronage  in  Rome,  since  Pope 
Adrian  cared  for  nothing  that  they  could  do,  but  they  were 
waiting  to  return  when  another  Medici  should  ascend  the 
papal  throne.  Bembo  was  living  in  Padua,  Pietro  Aretino 
in  Mantua  or  Venice,  Macchiavelli  in  retirement  near  Flor¬ 
ence,  Baldassare  Castiglione  was  preparing  himself  to  be¬ 
come  papal  ambassador  to  Spain,  Sannazaro  approaching 
the  close  of  a  distinguished  old  age  in  Naples,  Pomponazzi, 
the  philosopher,  after  stirring  educated  society  by  his  doubts 
upon  the  individual  existence  of  the  soul  after  death,  was 
still  lecturing  at  Bologna.  Influences  from  all  these  men 
gathered  to  a  focus  in  Rome.  Ignatius  passed  them  by,  as 
a  man  walks,  unnoticing,  over  shadows.  Yet  some  of  these 
things  might  have  touched  religious  sensibilities.  Michel¬ 
angelo’s  fresco  on  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  where 
God’s  outstretched  forefinger  imparts  life  to  the  inert  form 
of  man,  might  well  have  suggested  to  him  an  allegory  of 
spiritual  meaning;  the  Madonnas  of  Raphael  might  have 
helped  to  round  out  in  living  loveliness  the  visions  of  the 
Madonna  that  had  been  vouchsafed  to  him;  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  the  great  basilica  of  St.  Peter’s  might  have  served 
as  a  symbol  that  a  case  may  need  to  be  cast  away  and  a 
new  case  put  in  its  stead  without  hurt  to  the  jewel  within 
that  consecrates  the  case.  Not  so  with  Ignatius.  He  wor¬ 
shipped  in  the  sacred  churches,  he  prayed  at  the  privileged 
altars,  and  confirmed  his  faith  by  all  that  was  old,  tradi¬ 
tional,  mediaeval,  all  that  had  existed  before  the  new  spirit 
of  mental  energy  and  unrest,  of  intellectual  curiosity,  of 
search  and  discovery  of  some  new  thing,  of  admiration  for 
the  pagan  past,  had  come  like  the  springtime  over  Italy,  and 


THE  REFORMATION  AND  RENAISSANCE  61 

thence  winged  its  way  northward  across  the  Alps,  and  west¬ 
ward  over  the  Mare  Tyrrhenum  to  Spain. 

It  was  not  the  outward  splendor  of  Rome  that  alienated 
Ignatius.  He  beheld  the  magnificence  of  the  basilicas, 
sumptuous  with  recent  gifts,  of  the  palaces,  and  rich  houses 
dedicated  to  pride  and  pleasure.  He  beheld  the  great  pre¬ 
lates  with  their  troops  of  servants,  their  banquetings,  their 
ostentation,  their  hunting  and  hawking;  but  I  do  not  find 
that  he  spoke  one  word  in  criticism  of  this  luxury.  The 
theory  that  Christianity  is  a  revolt  of  the  proletariat  against 
the  self-indulgence  of  the  rich  found  no  lodgment  in  his 
mind.  He  was  an  ascetic  of  the  ascetics,  because  he  believed 
that  certain  services  due  to  God  required  of  the  servants 
who  were  to  perform  them,  great  self-denial;  but  he  had  no 
criticism  to  make  of  those  whose  services  were  of  a  different 
character.  His  objection  to  the  Renaissance  was  based  on 
other  grounds.  He  felt  that  the  spirit  which  animated  it, 
the  spirit  of  intellectual  curiosity,  was  an  apostate,  a 
renegade,  spirit.  What  did  the  Lord  God  require  of  a  man 
but  to  accept  the  established  creed,  to  believe  in  the  Three 
Divine  Persons,  in  Mary  the  Mother  of  Christ,  in  the  angels, 
in  thaumaturgic  saints,  and  to  praise  them  and  pray  to 
them  unceasingly?  The  duty  of  man  lay  in  devotion  and 
unquestioning  obedience.  He  must  lay  aside  his  private 
judgment  and  be  ready  to  obey  the  Spouse  of  Christ,  the 
Hierarchical  Church,  in  all  things.  He  must  make  confes¬ 
sion  and  take  the  Holy  Sacrament  once  a  year;  he  should  do 
so  every  week.  He  should  hear  mass,  hymns,  psalms  and 
prayers,  as  ordained  by  the  Church.  He  must  rate  celibacy 
higher  than  the  married  state,  he  must  honor  the  vows  of 
obedience,  poverty  and  chastity,  venerate  the  relics  of  saints, 
keep  fasts  and  abstinences,  and  seek  reasons  to  defend  all 
the  precepts  of  the  Church,  never  to  impugn  them.  And 
“in  order  to  attain  the  truth  in  all  things,  we  ought  always 
to  hold  that  we  believe  what  seems  to  us  white  to  be  black, 
if  the  Hierarchical  Church  so  defines  it.”  All  this  is  the 
very  antithesis  of  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance. 

Ignatius  was  right.  This  exaltation  of  learning,  of  litera¬ 
ture  and  art,  of  the  world  and  ways  of  Greece  and  Rome, 


62 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


of  human  life  on  earth  in  and  for  itself,  depreciated  the 
Christian  religion  and  the  Church  of  Rome,  both  directly 
and  indirectly.  The  Lutheran  heresy  rent  the  seamless 
garment  of  Christ,  but  the  subtle  spirit  of  the  Renaissance 
was  poisoning  the  well  of  Christian  revelation;  unless  it 
was  strangled,  a  day  would  surely  come  when  its  disciples 
would  not  merely  disregard,  but  also  make  a  mock  of,  all 
Christian  beliefs.  I  do  not  mean  that  Ignatius  would  have 
expressed  his  ideas  in  just  these  phrases,  and  I  may  be  read¬ 
ing  back  into  those  earlier  years  the  lessons  that  he  learned 
later  in  life;  but  what  I  have  said  I  believe  to  be  correct  in 
substance.  This  is  apparent  from  the  policy  he  adopted. 
At  Loyola,  he  had  said  to  himself :  “Why  should  not  I  do 
what  St.  Francis  did?”  As  he  knew,  St.  Francis  never 
studied,  and  never  approved  of  study;  and  when  he  sailed 
from  Barcelona  he  had  received  the  scantiest  schooling. 
But  after  his  year  of  travel  he  turned  completely  about; 
when  he  disembarked  in  Spain  on  his  return,  he  started  upon 
a  twelve-year  course  of  education,  beginning  in  a  grammar 
school  at  Barcelona  and  ending  at  the  University  of  Paris. 
His  purpose  was  to  fit  himself  to  be  the  leader  of  a  little 
band  of  men,  who  should  devote  themselves,  body  and  soul, 
to  combating  the  pagan  spirit  of  intellectual  freedom,  by 
teaching  and  preaching  the  traditional  dogmas  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  Just  why  he  adhered  to  the  plan  of  going 
to  Jerusalem,  as  I  say,  is  a  puzzling  question.  Perhaps  his 
stubborn  tenacity  of  purpose  clung  to  the  idea;  perhaps  he 
thought  that  other  young  men  were  to  be  judged  by  him¬ 
self,  and  that  this  plan  would  be  the  best  possible  to  stir 
their  young  imaginations  and  kindle  their  fervor,  as  it  had 
done  with  him;  perhaps  because  it  was  necessary  to  have 
some  definite  plan,  and  this  was  ready  to  hand.  In  any 
case,  I  think  that  somewhere  in  the  depths  of  his  soul  he 
must  have  known  that  the  plan  would  be  but  temporary, 
to  be  in  due  time  replaced  by  another. 


CHAPTER  VII 


BARCELONA  (1524-1525) 

Arrived  in  Barcelona,  Loyola,  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine, 
as  I  think,  or  thirty-four  according  to  the  usual  reckoning, 
entered  upon  the  second  stage  of  his  spiritual  life,  as  school¬ 
boy  in  a  grammar  school. 

His  conversion  shows  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  sensitive 
imagination,  dominated  by  needs  which  things  of  the  world 
could  not  satisfy.  From  his  book  of  Spiritual  Exercises  it 
appears  that  he  possessed  remarkable  psychological  insight, 
an  ability  to  analyze  and  understand  impulses,  needs,  habits 
and  aspirations;  and  this  ability  to  rearrange  his  whole 
conception  of  the  world’s  needs  and  of  his  own  life’s  work, 
displays  an  extraordinary  mental  detachment  from  pre- 
established  opinions,  a  detachment  which  is  wholly  incon¬ 
sistent  with  the  mediaeval  tradition  that  he  represents,  and 
would  have  been  impossible  for  such  a  saint  as  Francis  of 
Assisi,  for  instance.  This  volte-face  reveals  a  remarkable 
side  to  his  personality,  and  helps  one  to  understand  how  he 
was  able  to  acquire  his  immense  influence  over  disciples  of 
very  different  temperament,  disposition,  and  intelligence ;  it 
indicates  that  he  possessed  a  power  of  looking  at  the  oppo¬ 
site  aspects  of  a  problem  that  one  finds  only  in  men  of  rare 
intellectual  aloofness,  and  that  one  would  not  have  expected 
to  find  in  him  of  all  men.  Up  to  the  time  of  his  visit  to 
Italy,  Ignatius  was  completely  a  child  of  the  middle  ages, 
his  youth  might  well  have  been  passed  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  suddenly  he  has  become  a  man  of  his  own  time, 
a  stout  conservative  indeed,  but  with  a  clearer  understand¬ 
ing  of  what  must  be  done  in  order  to  strengthen  the  old 
order  within  and  defend  it  from  enemies  without,  than  any 
one  bred  in  the  Roman  curia.  Perhaps  I  ought  to  add  a 

63 


64 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


qualification  to  these  remarks,  if  qualification  it  is,  in  order 
to  prevent  any  misconception.  I  have  spoken  of  Loyola’s 
change  of  plan  as  revolutionary;  so  it  was,  but  the  change, 
after  all,  was  but  a  change  of  ways  and  means,  as  a  navigator 
bound  for  Cathay  might  abandon  his  plan  of  the  northwest 
passage  and,  steering  south  by  east,  double  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  and  sail  across  the  Indian  seas.  Ignatius  kept 
unchanged  his  fundamental  purpose  of  serving  God  and  his 
neighbor. 

It  was  awkward  for  a  man  close  upon  thirty  to  go  to 
school  with  boys  and  study  the  rudiments  of  Latin;  but 
Loyola’s  main  difficulty  at  first  lay  in  his  inability  to  fix 
his  mind  on  his  book  and  get  the  rules  of  grammar  by 
heart,  because  his  imagination  wandered  off  to  contemplate 
celestial  things,  and  his  joy  therein  was  so  great  that  he 
could  not  deny  it  to  himself.  He  recognized  his  weakness 
and,  as  usual,  conceived  of  it  under  concrete  form  as  a  trick 
of  Satan’s.  He  went  to  his  schoolmaster  and  begged  him 
to  go  with  him  to  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  del  Mar. 
There,  under  the  high  aspiring  roof  this  strange  pupil  fell 
on  his  knees,  and,  by  the  religious  light  that  shone  through 
the  great  rose  window,  confessed  to  his  Master  that  the 
Devil  was  pressing  him  hard  but  that  he  now  pledged  his 
word  not  to  miss  a  lesson  for  the  space  of  two  years,  and 
besought  his  Master  to  watch  over  him  and  treat  him  like  a 
little  boy  and  flog  him  every  time  that  he  should  be  found 
listless  and  inattentive.  This  exorcism  attained  its  pur¬ 
pose,  and  he  seems  from  this  time  on  to  have  pursued  his 
studies  with  diligence  and  fair  success. 

As  usual  mundane  matters  did  not  come  within  his  field 
of  vision.  In  June,  1525,  a  notable  event  took  place;  the 
captive  king,  Francis  I,  disembarked  at  Barcelona,  and 
lodged  for  three  nights  in  the  archiepiscopal  palace.  An 
immense  concourse  of  people  thronged  to  see  him,  cannon 
were  fired  in  his  honor,  and  trumpets,  drums  and  clarions 
welcomed  his  coming.  A  cavalcade  of  ladies  rendered  him 
a  visit  and  received  his  compliments.  He  attended  service 
in  the  cathedral,  escorted  by  a  troop  of  lords  and  gentlemen, 
pikemen  and  musketeers.  Some  two  or  three  months  later, 


BARCELONA 


65 


his  famous  sister,  usually  known  as  Marguerite  of  Navarre, 
— “la  marguerite  des  princesses” — dressed  all  in  white,  for 
she  was  in  mourning  for  her  late  husband,  passed  through 
the  town,  and  hurried  on  in  her  litter,  being  all  impatience 
to  see  her  beloved  brother: 

Le  desire  du  bien  que  j ’attends 
Me  donne  de  travail  matiere; 

Une  heure  me  dure  cents  ans, 

Et  me  semble  que  ma  litiere 
Ne  bouge  ou  retourne  en  arriere. 

My  longing  for  the  good  that  nears 
Is  source  to  me  of  bitter  woe; 

Each  hour  lasts  an  hundred  years, 

And  my  slow  litter  half  appears 
To  stand  stock-still  or  backward  go. 

But  when  she  hurried  through,  and  when  the  captive  king 
dallied,  all  the  boys  of  the  grammar  school  must  have  played 
truant  on  those  days;  yet  Loyola  no  more  heeded  these 
sights  than  the  “gay  motes  that  people  the  sunbeams/’ 
During  these  two  years  he  enjoyed  the  friendship  oi 
several  ladies  of  the  city,  in  especial,  Doha  Ines  Pascual 
whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  on  the  day  after  his  vigil 
at  Montserrat,  and  Doha  Isabel  Roser.  It  is  said  that  for 
a  time  he  lived  in  Doha  Isabel’s  house,  nevertheless  he  con¬ 
tinued  to  beg  his  food.  These  compassionate  ladies  gave 
him  alms,  and  tried  to  persuade  him  to  be  less  rigorous  with 
his  poor  body,  to  eat  more,  and  wear  better  clothes.  He 
consented  to  put  on  a  black  cassock,  but  continued  to  sleep 
on  the  floor  and,  whenever  his  health  permitted,  to  inflict 
upon  himself  severe  acts  of  penance.  Such  corporal  disci¬ 
pline  is  in  accordance  with  austere  monastic  traditions,  and 
it  need  not  be  set  down  to  mere  wayward  fanaticism.  Does 
it  not  quicken  the  better  part  in  us,  to  witness  the  spirit 
bully  the  body,  and  take  revenge  for  the  victories  which  the 
body  too  often  has  won  over  the  spirit?  But  in  this  tor¬ 
menting  of  the  body  there  is  also  the  idea  of  an  oblation  to 
an  unappeased  God,  and  this  idea  takes  us  back,  through 
earlier  centuries  and  dark  ages,  to  idolatry  and  primitive  re¬ 
ligions.  Loyola,  I  think,  always  entertained  some  such 


66 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


idea.  He  suggests  to  me  some  great  fruit-bearing  tree,  deep- 
rooted  in  primitive  soil,  with  bole  and  branches  high  in  the 
air,  leading  as  trees  seem  to  do,  a  sort  of  double  life,  draw¬ 
ing  their  nourishment  from  the  past  and  giving  fruit  to  the 
present. 

One  anecdote  told  of  him  while  at  Barcelona  tends  to 
support  the  notion  that  thoughts  of  the  pagan  Renaissance 
had  a  large  place  in  the  background  of  his  mind.  It  con¬ 
cerns  his  first  acquaintance  with  the  writings  of  Erasmus, 
and  necessitates  a  digression  upon  Spanish  culture  at  the 
time.  Of  all  the  humanists  of  his  generation,  Erasmus  had 
by  far  the  greatest  renown  throughout  western  Europe,  in 
the  Low  Countries,  England,  France,  Germany,  Spain,  and 
even  in  Italy.  His  scholarship,  both  in  sacred  and  secular 
studies,  his  editions  of  the  classics,  his  translation  of  the 
New  Testament,  made  his  name  a  household  word  among 
scholars;  his  wit,  humor,  and  elegant  Latin,  delighted  culti¬ 
vated  society ;  and  his  whole-hearted  zeal  for  reform  within 
the  Church,  his  attacks  upon  monastic  corruption,  made 
sometimes  with  irony,  mockery  and  laughter,  sometimes 
with  bitter  frankness,  won  the  good  will  of  reformers,  both 
clerics  and  laymen.  The  most  distinguished  men  every¬ 
where  were  proud  of  his  acquaintance.  Sir  Thomas  More, 
Colet,  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s,  Grocyn  the  elegant  scholar,  and 
others  among  the  best  in  England,  were  his  intimate  friends. 
Charles  V  favored  him,  Francis  I  invited  him  to  Paris, 
Leo  X  recommended  him  for  a  bishopric.  He  basked  in 
the  sunshine  of  admiration  and  applause.  His  lighter  works, 
The  Praise  of  Folly,  and  The  Colloquies,  were  read  by 
everybody,  everywhere.  He  occupied  a  position  in  Euro¬ 
pean  letters  such  as  no  man  had  held  since  Petrarch,  and 
before  Petrarch  since  Cicero,  and  no  other  was  destined  to 
take  until  Voltaire  should  come  with  similar  powers  of  wit 
and  raillery.  Erasmus  imitated  the  dialogues  and  disqui¬ 
sitions  of  Lucian  and  made  them  the  fashion;  in  particular 
he  fell  foul  of  monks  and  friars.  Reformers  and  liberal- 
minded  men  laughed  and  rejoiced,  but  the  conservatives 
took  alarm,  and  when  German  discontent  kindled  into  re¬ 
volt  and  Luther  defied  the  Pope,  they  suspected  Erasmus  of 


BARCELONA 


67 


not  limiting  his  sympathy  to  a  mere  reformation  within  the 
Church.  Naturally  both  parties  were  eager  to  bring  so 
powerful  a  champion  to  their  side;  Protestants  and  Catho¬ 
lics,  alike,  urged  him  to  step  forth  and  lead  their  forces. 
Erasmus  was  in  a  difficult  position;  he  agreed  to  some  ex¬ 
tent  with  each  side.  He  went  part  way  with  the  Reformers. 
It  is  said,  that  when  asked  to  condemn  Luther  he  replied: 
'‘‘Luther  is  wrong  on  two  points,  he  has  hit  at  the  Pope’s 
crown  and  the  monks’  bellies.”  And  certainly  his  attacks 
upon  the  corruptions  of  the  monastic  orders  were  worthy  of 
the  most  violent  reformer.  But  on  the  other  hand  he  was 
a  good  Catholic  in  the  fundamental  matters  of  the  faith,  and 
his  sense  of  propriety,  decorum  and  good  breeding,  was 
offended  by  Luther’s  rough  and  rude  denunciations  of  what 
the  Christian  world  had  long  held  sacred.  Certainly  it 
never  entered  his  head  to  break  with  the  Church.  Conse¬ 
quently  extremists  on  both  sides  belabored  him.  Luther 
compared  him  to  Epicurus  and  Lucian,  and  charged  that  he 
held  that  God  did  not  bother  Himself  about  mankind,  or, 
that  he  did  not  believe  in  God  at  all.  The  orthodox  uni¬ 
versities  of  Cambridge  and  Oxford  forbade  students  to 
read  his  writings  and  booksellers  to  publish  them;  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Louvain  raged  against  him. 

In  Spain — to  bring  the  narrative  closer  to  our  central 
interest — Erasmus  had  a  great  following,  his  name  was  upon 
everybody’s  lips.  Many  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of 
letters  were  avowed  disciples,  Erasmistas  as  they  are  called, 
while  others  admired  his  learning  and  wit,  but  held  a  little 
aloof  because  of  his  attacks  on  church  ceremonies,  fasts, 
vigils,  invocations  of  saints  and  other  cherished  practises. 
A  number  of  these  Erasmistas,  using  the  term  in  a  broad 
sense,  stand  high  in  the  ranks  of  Spanish  learning  and 
literature.  Luis  Vives  (1492-1540)  of  Valencia,  who  after 
studying  in  Spain  and  France,  became  professor  at  Louvain, 
is  perhaps  the  most  illustrious.  His  speculations  on  philos¬ 
ophy  have  been  compared  to  those  of  Lord  Bacon.  Juan 
Gines  de  Sepulveda  (1490-1572)  who  had  been  educated  at 
the  universities  of  Alcala  de  Henares  and  of  Bologna,  and 
had  become  a  distinguished  scholar,  corresponded  with 


68 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Erasmus,  who  praised  him  highly  for  his  Ciceronian  Latin ; 
and  the  two  remained  familiar  friends  until  the  schism  in 
the  Church  threatened  war,  and  then  Sepulveda  seems  to 
have  turned  about  and  cast  blame.  Alvar  Gomez  de  Ciudad 
Real  (1488-1538),  soldier  and  scholar,  was  another  of  them, 
not  indeed  well  known  to  the  world  but  with  a  position  of 
his  own  in  the  history  of  Spanish  culture.  A  fourth,  Alonso 
Fernandez  de  Madrid  (1478-1559),  also  a  man  of  eminence, 
translated  Erasmus’s  Enchiridion  Militis  Christiani  (The 
Manual  of  a  Christian  Gentleman)  a  work  to  which  I  shall 
soon  refer.  A  fifth,  Alonso  de  Valdes  (1490-1532)  served 
the  Emperor  in  the  capacity  of  secretary,  accompanying  him 
to  Aachen,  for  his  coronation,  and  to  Worms  for  the  famous 
diet.  Valdes,  in  spite  of  his  liberal  views,  like  almost  all 
Spanish  gentlemen,  except  his  brother  Juan,  who  is  to  be 
reckoned  as  an  exception,  was  a  devout  Catholic,  and  found 
Luther  ‘‘audacious  and  shameless.”  His  brother,  Juan, 
(1501-1541)  is  a  recognized  master  of  Spanish  prose,  the 
author  of  the  Dialogue  between  Mercury  and  Charon  that  I 
have  quoted,  and  of  other  satires  that  show  his  indebtedness 
to  Erasmus.  In  later  years  he  lived  in  Naples,  became  a 
half-mystical  religious  thinker,  and  teacher,  and  laid  him¬ 
self  open  to  charges  of  unorthodoxy.  Among  those  who  be¬ 
came  his  disciples,  or  perhaps  I  should  say,  merely  listeners, 
were  two  very  celebrated  ladies  of  high  character,  the 
Lady  Julia  Gonzaga,  and  Vittoria  Colonna,  a  poetess  her¬ 
self,  but  still  more  renowned  because  of  the  sonnets  ad¬ 
dressed  to  her  by  Michelangelo.  Besides  these  men  of 
letters,  the  list  of  Erasmus’s  admirers  and  supporters  in¬ 
cluded  Alonso  Fonseca,  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  Primate  of 
Spain,  Don  Alonso  Manrique,  Archbishop  of  Seville,  all  the 
professors  at  the  University  of  Alcala,  except  one  or  two, 
many  courtiers  in  attendance  on  the  Emperor,  and  so  on. 

But  just  as  there  was  an  opposing  faction  in  England, 
the  Low  Countries,  and  France,  so  there  was  in  Spain. 
Erasmus  had  denounced  and  ridiculed  the  great  monastic 
orders  without  mercy,  and  they  bitterly  resented  it.  The 
Franciscan  Osservanti  were  the  most  zealous,  but  many 
Dominicans  made  common  cause  with  them.  They  rum- 


BARCELONA 


69 


maged  through  his  books,  discovered  doubtful  words  in  his 
translation  of  the  New  Testament,  and  scented  traces  of 
agreement  with  Luther.  Putting  one  thing  and  another 
together,  they  marshalled  their  charges  under  twenty-one 
heads  and  laid  a  formal  accusation  before  the  Inquisition. 
The  story  of  this  accusation,  how  it  was  submitted  to  the 
theologians  of  Salamanca,  Valladolid  and  Alcala,  how  it 
finally  went  to  Pope  Clement  VII,  and  how  the  Emperor 
used  his  influence  on  behalf  of  Erasmus,  belongs  to  the 
years  subsequent  to  Loyola’s  attendance  at  the  grammar 
school  in  Barcelona,  At  that  time  the  enmity  to  Erasmus 
had  gone  no  further  than  indignation  among  the  friars  over 
his  attacks  upon  them. 

The  incident  that  has  occasioned  this  digression  upon 
Erasmus  concerns  his  book,  the  Enchiridion  Militis  Chris- 
tiani.  This  had  been  composed  years  before,  at  the  special 
request  of  a  lady  in  order  to  arouse  her  profligate  husband 
to  a  sense  of  duty  and  religion,  and  had  been  approved  by 
Adrian,  afterwards  Pope,  who  was  then,  if  I  remember 
aright,  a  professor  at  Louvain.  It  was  so  much  liked  by 
Archduke  Ferdinand,  brother  to  Charles  V,  that  Erasmus 
could  say  “the  book  is  hardly  ever  out  of  his  hands.”  When 
it  was  subsequently  translated  into  Spanish,  in  1526  or 
1527,  by  Alonso  Fernandez  de  Madrid,  with  a  dedication  to 
the  Inquisitor  General,  it  was  read  by  everybody  in  Spain, 
city  folks  and  country  folks,  priests,  monks,  courtiers  in  the 
Emperor’s  palace,  wanderers  by  the  wayside,  travellers 
stopping  at  an  inn,  and  so  forth.  It  is  said  to  be  the  finest 
of  Erasmus’s  minor  compositions,  and,  I  imagine,  would  ap¬ 
pear  extremely  pious  to  anybody  at  the  present  day. 

Ignatius  was  advised  to  read  it  on  the  ground  that  it  was 
not  only  religious,  but  also  written  in  elegant  Latin.  He 
started  to  read  it,  but  while  he  read — this  is  his  own  story — 
he  felt  a  sort  of  numbness  creeping  into  his  soul,  so  he 
laid  the  book  down.  He  took  it  up  again  several  times, 
each  time  with  the  same  experience,  and  then  renounced  the 
reading  of  it  altogether.  It  is  hardly  possible  that  the 
mere  text  could  have  produced  this  effect ;  it  had  been  writ¬ 
ten  before  Luther  was  heard  of,  and  except  by  very  wilful 


70 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


or  wayward  interpretation,  no  heretical  meaning  could  pos¬ 
sibly  be  read  into  it.  And  yet  according  to  Loyola’s  own 
story  there  is  no  suggestion  that  he  was  influenced  by  any¬ 
thing  except  the  text  itself.  At  Barcelona  he  may  have 
heard  of  the  feeling  against  Erasmus  among  the  mendicant 
orders;  but  the  absence  of  all  reference  to  this  feeling,  im¬ 
plies  the  contrary.  It  is  still  less  probable  that  he  was 
aware  of  Stuniga’s  criticisms  upon  Erasmus’s  edition  of  the 
New  Testament,  published  at  Alcala  in  1524. 

I  dwell  upon  this  incident  because  I  think  it  sheds  light 
on  Loyola’s  very  peculiar  psychology.  In  this  rejection  of 
the  Enchiridion,  I  do  not  believe  that  his  mind  went  through 
any  reasoned  sequences.  It  caught  hold  of  scraps  and  tags 
of  thought,  and  by  a  lightning-like  process  that  we  call 
intuition,  started  perhaps  by  Erasmus’s  turn  of  phrase,  by 
his  choice  of  words,  by  the  style  that  betrayed  a  Laodicean 
disposition,  jumped  to  the  conviction  that  here  wras  a  baleful 
influence.  He  was  well  aware,  as  I  have  said,  of  the  funda¬ 
mental  enmity  between  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  and 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church;  and  he  knew  full  well  that 
those  who  were  not  with  the  Church,  those  that  teetered  to 
and  fro  between  her  and  heresy,  were  against  her.  He 
classed,  rightly  enough,  Mr.  Doubtful,  Mr.  Facing-both- 
ways,  and  all  such  as  enemies,  and  among  them  Desiderius 
Erasmus.  He  never  changed  his  mind.  In  later  years,  it 
is  said,  he  forbade  members  of  the  Society  to  read  any 
book  written  by  Erasmus ;  but  this  report  is  contradicted  by 
the  fact  that  Father  Nadal  used  a  treatise  on  grammar  by 
Erasmus  as  a  text  book  in  the  Jesuit  School  at  Messina. 

The  leaders  of  the  Catholic  party  subsequently  adopted 

the  same  notion  of  the  Enchiridion.  The  Sorbonne  con- 

\  _ 

demned  it,  the  Parlement  of  Paris  burnt  it  on  the  Great 
Square  of  Notre  Dame.  The  Spanish  Inquisition  forbade 
the  Spanish  version,  and  carefully  expurgated  the  Latin. 
The  Society  of  Jesus  held  Erasmus  up  as  a  heretic,  and 
Father  Canisius,  one  of  its  early  members,  declared,  Uaut 
Erasmus  lutherizat,  aut  Lutherus  erasmizat”  The  “numb¬ 
ness  of  heart”  that  Loyola  felt  while  reading  bears  eloquent 
testimony  to  the  hypersensitiveness  of  his  catholicity. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


ALCALA  (1526-1527) 

By  the  end  of  two  years,  about  the  spring  of  1526, 
Ignatius  had  learned  enough  Latin  in  the  opinion  of  his 
master  to  commence  a  course  of  philosophy  at  the  univer¬ 
sity  of  Alcala  de  Henares,  a  town  that  lies  a  little  distance 
to  the  northeast  of  Madrid.  Three  friends,  who  may  be 
accounted  his  first  disciples,  though  they  soon  fell  by  the 
way,  went  with  him  from  Barcelona, — Calisto  de  Sa,  Juan 
de  Arteaga  and  Lope  de  Caceres. 

The  university  of  Alcala  was  young.  It  had  been  founded 
about  twenty  years  before  by  the  celebrated  Ximenes,  who 
had  risen  by  rapid  steps  from  the  position  of  simple  friar 
and  parish  priest  to  be  confessor  to  Queen  Isabella,  then 
Archbishop  of  Toledo,  Cardinal  and  regent  of  Spain.  In 
Granada,  soon  after  the  capture,  in  the  fresh  flush  of  cru¬ 
sading  zeal,  Ximenes  had  burned  all  the  Arabic  books  and 
manuscripts  he  could  lay  hands  on,  religious  or  scientific, 
excepting  some  treatises  on  medicine,  but  he  had  done  this 
out  of  devotion  to  the  Christian  faith,  and  not  from  any  ill 
will  to  learning.  At  Alcala  he  endowed  forty-two  chairs, 
and  filled  them  so  worthily  that  the  university  sprang  into 
immediate  favor;  it  is  said  that  about  Loyola’s  time  there 
were  seven  thousand  students  there.  One  achievement,  the 
publication  of  a  Polyglot  Bible,  that  is  the  Hebrew,  Greek 
and  Latin  versions  printed  side  by  side  in  parallel  columns, 
had  made  the  university  famous  throughout  Europe.  Here 
Ignatius  studied  three  courses,  logic,  in  a  treatise  by  Do¬ 
mingo  de  Soto,  physics,  according  to  Albertus  Magnus,  and 
theology,  as  presented  in  the  books  of  Peter  Lombard,  in 
short  the  usual  beginnings  of  mediaeval  scholastic  philos¬ 
ophy  and  theology. 


H 


72 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Of  Loyola’s  life  at  the  university  as  a  student  little  is 
known.  He  lodged,  at  first,  in  a  lowly  hospice,  and  begged 
his  livelihood.  The  warden  in  charge  looked  kindly  upon 
him,  and  transferred  him  to  a  better  room.  A  printer,  too, 
Eguia,  by  name — in  those  days  printers  were  scholars — be¬ 
friended  him,  giving  him  alms  both  for  himself  and  for  the 
poor,  and  for  a  time  took  into  his  own  house  Loyola’s  three 
companions.  Loyola,  as  usual,  strove  to  help  his  neighbors 
in  religious  matters,  teaching  them  to  pray,  to  meditate,  to 
practise  a  habit  of  retreat,  and  instructing  them  in  his 
Spiritual  Exercises.  His  three  disciples  did  very  much  the 
same,  and  also  a  young  Frenchman  who  had  joined  them, 
Jean  Reinalde,  formerly  a  page  to  the  viceroy  of  Navarre. 
All  wore  a  peculiar  garment  made  of  sackcloth.  They  min¬ 
istered  to  many  people,  most  of  whom  received  from  their 
ministrations  much  spiritual  consolation,  but  several  women 
were  affected  hysterically.  One  woman,  for  instance,  when 
she  attempted  to  lift  her  left  arm  to  scourge  herself,  de¬ 
clared  that  she  felt  it  grasped  and  held  fast.  Other  epi¬ 
sodes  of  like  character  occurred.  Great  talk  arose,  dubious 
rumors  spread  abroad,  and  reached  the  ears  of  the  inquisi¬ 
tors  at  Toledo.  A  commission  of  investigation  came  to 
Alcala.  Loyola’s  friendly  host  warned  him  of  their  coming; 
told  him  that  he  and  his  companions  were  called  bagmen, 
in  allusion  to  their  sackcloth  garments,  and  also  illuminati, 
and  added  that  the  inquisitors  would  make  mince-meat  of 
them.  Bagmen  was  an  innocent  term,  but  there  was  danger 
in  the  appellation  illuminati,  for  this  was  the  name  given 
to  persons,  considered  by  the  Inquisition  to  be  heretics,  who 
followed  inward  illumination  rather  than  the  teaching  of 
the  Church,  and  indulged  not  only  in  extravagant  rites  and 
practices  of  their  own  devising  but,  as  was  generally  be¬ 
lieved,  in  very  gross  vice.  The  inquisitors  turned  out 
to  be  men  of  good  sense,  and  did  no  more  than  their 
duty  required.  The  official  record  of  their  proceed¬ 
ings  gives  the  only  account  that  there  is  of  Loyola’s 
methods  of  carrying  on  what  we  should  call  evangelical 
missions  conducted  by  a  street  preacher,  so  I  shall  quote 
it  in  full: 


ALCALA  73 

In  the  city  of  Alcala  de  Henares,  on  the  19th  day  of  No¬ 
vember,  1526,  before  Dr.  Miguel  Carrasco,  a  canon  of  Santa 
Justa  in  the  said  city,  the  licentiate  Alonso  Mexia,  canon  of 
Toledo,  and  before  me,  Francisco  Ximenes,  notary:  Fray 
Hernando  Rubio,  presbyter,  of  the  Order  of  St.  Francis, 
forty-one  years  of  age,  being  duly  sworn,  and  asked  what 
he  knew  concerning  certain  young  men  who  go  about  the 
city,  clad  in  light  gray  smocks  that  reach  to  the  feet,  some 
of  them  barefoot,  and  say  that  they  live  after  the  manner 
of  the  apostles,  said — 

That  what  he  knew  was  this:  He  had  seen  now  and 
again  in  the  city,  four  or  five  such  men  clad  as  described, 
one  or  two  of  them  went  barefoot.  And  once,  about  two 
months  before,  the  witness  had  started  off  in  company  with 
a  boy  to  fetch  a  peck  of  flour  that  he  wanted,  and  had  gone 
to  the  house  of  Isabel,  the  bedeswoman  who  lived  behind  the 
church  of  St.  Francis;  when  he  got  there  he  opened  the 
door,  and  saw  in  the  court,  carpeted  by  a  grass  matting, 
one  of  the  aforesaid,  who  went  barefoot,  a  young  man,  per¬ 
haps  twenty  years  old.  Two  or  three  women  were  kneeling 
round  him,  their  hands  folded  as  if  in  prayer,  and  looking  at 
the  young  man,  who  was  talking.  The  witness  did  not  hear 
what-  was  said.  One  of  the  women  was  the  said  bedeswoman, 
who  exclaimed,  when  she  saw  the  witness,  “Leave  us  alone, 
Padre,  as  we  are  busy.”  And  that  same  day,  in  the  after¬ 
noon,  the  bedeswoman  came  to  the  witness  and  said: 
“Padre,  don’t  be  shocked  by  what  you  saw  today;  that 
man  is  a  saint.” 

When  asked  if  he  knew  whether  these  young  men  had 
held  other  meetings,  he  answered  that  he  had  heard  say 
that  they  met  at  a  certain  hour  of  the  day  in  the  hospice  of 
Our  Lady,  in  Main  street,  that  the  young  men  spoke  there, 
and  men  and  women  went  to  hear  them. 

Asked  if  the  young  men  lived  together,  he  said  no,  each 
lived  alone. 

Asked  as  to  their  age,  whether  they  were  old  or  young, 
he  said  they  were  all  young  men,  and  he  thought  that  the 
one  whom  he  found  with  the  women  in  the  court  yard  was 
the  oldest. 


74 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Asked  whether  they  were  educated  or  not,  he  said  he  did 
not  know ;  some  of  them  were  studying  elementary  grammar 
and  logic,  but  that  they  did  not  attend  other  courses  in  the 
university. 

Asked  if  he  knew  where  they  came  from,  he  said  that  he 
did  not  know,  but  he  had  heard  say  that  one  of  them  lived 
near  Najera;  and  he  did  not  know  whether  they  were  new 
Christians  [i.  e.  persons  descended  from  Jewish  ancestry 
within  four  generations]  or  old  Christians  [persons  of  pure 
Christian  ancestry] . 

Asked  what  he  thought  of  their  costume  and  their  way  of 
living,  he  said  that  their  way  of  meeting  together  and 
discussing,  seemed  to  him  very  novel. 

The  witness  was  bidden  not  to  speak  of  the  matter. 

Beatriz  Ramires,  a  resident  of  the  town,  etc.,  testified, 
that  she  knew  one  of  these  young  men  [described  as  before 
by  the  examiner]  named  Inigo,  who  she  had  heard  say  was 
a  gentleman ;  he  went  about  barefoot  in  a  sackcloth  garment 
down  to  his  feet.  She  had  also  seen  four  others,  who  wore 
the  same  dress,  but  did  not  go  barefoot. 

She  further  said  that  once  she  was  at  the  house  of  Andres 
Davila,  a  baker,  and  there  in  a  room  was  the  said  Inigo  and 
one  of  his  companions.  Various  persons  were  listening  to 
Inigo,  Isabel  Sanchez  (the  bedeswoman)  who  lived  at  the 
back  of  St.  Francis’s  church,  Ana  del  Vado,  house-keeper  for 
Fray  Bernardino,  the  daughter  of  Juana  de  Villarejo,  a  girl 
of  about  fourteen,  the  said  Andres  Davila,  and  (the  witness 
thought)  his  wife,  and  also  the  wife  of  Francisco  de  la 
Morenna,  and  another  man,  a  vine-dresser;  she  thought 
there  were  others  as  well  but  she  did  not  remember  who. 
Inigo  was  instructing  them  in  the  two  great  commandments, 
that  is,  Thou  shaft  love  God,  etc.,  etc.;  he  spoke  at  great 
length  on  this  subject;  and  the  witness  was  vexed  to  find 
that  while  she  was  there  Inigo  said  nothing  that  was  new 
to  her,  merely  all  about  loving  God  and  your  neighbor. 

This  witness  further  testified  that  she  had  gone  there  be¬ 
cause  Inigo  had  said,  a  day  or  two  before,  that  he  was  going 
to  speak  on  the  commandments ;  she  did  not  know  of  other 


75 


ALCALA 

meetings,  but  had  heard  that  Inigo  had  preached  to  several 
persons  in  the  hospital  of  Antezana  in  the  city.  Two  of 
these  companions,  Caceres  and  Arteaga,  shared  a  room  in 
the  house  of  Hernando  de  Parra,  Calisto  and  Juanico  de 
Reinalde  lived  with  Andres  Davila,  and  Inigo  lived  in  the 
hospital  of  Antezana,  and  she  had  seen  some  of  them  to¬ 
gether  in  Inigo’s  room.  They  were  all  young  men.  Some¬ 
times  they  received  some  little  presents,  a  bunch  of  grapes, 
a  slice  of  ham,  etc.,  in  return  for  their  teachings,  but  the 
presents  were  thrust  upon  them,  against  their  will.  She 
herself  had  persuaded  some  rich  ladies  to  give  Inigo  the 
cloth  for  the  garment  he  wore.  A  mattress  also  and 
two  coverlets  were  given,  and  one  mattress  lent;  and 
she  had  given  a  pillow  stuffed  with  wool  to  Calisto  and 
Joannes. 

The  wife  of  one  of  the  wardens  of  the  hospital  also  testi¬ 
fied.  She  corroborated  what  the  last  witness  had  said,  and 
gave  some  further  details.  Caceres  came  to  the  hospital 
every  day  for  his  dinner  and  supper,  and  immediately  after 
dinner  went  off  to  the  university.  Sometimes  he  came  to 
talk  to  Inigo,  and  they  would  talk  together  either  in  Inigo’s 
room  or  in  the  court;  she  did  not  know  what  about.  Some¬ 
times,  too,  before  they  received  the  coverlets,  one  of  the 
companions  came  and  spent  the  night,  but  that  since  then 
Inigo  always  slept  alone.  She  thought  Inigo  and  Calisto 
had  been  in  Alcala  about  four  months.  She  did  not  know 
whether  they  had  induced  other  persons  to  wear  their  dress, 
but  that  Juanico,  who  had  been  brought  to  the  hospital  be¬ 
cause  of  a  wound,  had  at  that  time  worn  good  clothes,  but 
since  then  had  adopted  the  same  dress  as  the  others.  Some¬ 
times  women,  girls,  students,  and  friars,  came  to  ask  for 
Inigo,  and  she  had  heard  him  discoursing  to  them,  but  she 
did  not  know  what  about.  Sometimes  her  husband  scolded 
the  visitors,  and  bade  them  let  him  study;  this  was  because 
Inigo  had  told  him  not  to  let  them  in  because  they  disturbed 
him. 

Visitors  usually  went  to  hear  him  discourse  on  feast  days, 
and  but  little  on  other  days;  sometimes  in  the  morning, 


76 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


sometimes  after  dinner,  sometimes  later  in  the  afternoon, 
and  students  at  times  went  in  the  evening. 

The  warden  was  then  called.  He  added  little.  He 
thought  that  some  women  came  every  day  to  see  Loyola, 
sometimes  as  many  as  ten  or  twelve  together.  Those  who 
came  in  the  morning  were  veiled.  The  hospital,  he  said, 
provided  Inigo  with  food  and  drink,  a  room  and  a  candle. 

This  was  all  the  testimony.  Two  days  later  the  Reverend 
Licentiate  Juan  Rodriguez  de  Figueroa,  Vicar  General  in  the 
court  of  Alcala  for  the  Most  Illustrious  and  Right  Reverend 
don  Alonso  de  Fonseca,  archbishop  of  Toledo,  issued  the  de¬ 
cree  that,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  each  of  the  com¬ 
panions  [I  omit  the  legal  verbiage]  should  within  a  week 
leave  off  the  costume  they  were  wearing  and  conform  to  the 
ordinary  dress  that  clergy  or  laity  were  accustomed  to  wear 
in  the  kingdom  of  Castile. 

In  view  of  the  troubled  time,  and  the  general  suspicion 
attending  any  lack  of  religious  conventionality,  this  was  a 
very  mild  and  reasonable  decision,  and  bears  honorable  wit¬ 
ness  to  the  influence  of  Erasmus  and  his  teachings  upon  the 
Archbishop  of  Toledo,  the  Inquisitor  General,  to  whom  the 
Spanish  translation  of  the  Enchiridion  was  soon  to  be 
dedicated. 

Ignatius,  conscious  that  he  had  done  nothing  that  the 
Church  could  find  fault  with,  was  annoyed  by  this  examina¬ 
tion  into  his  life  and  habits.  He  said  to  the  Vicar  General: 
“What  have  you  gained  by  all  these  questionings?  What 
wrong-doing  have  you  discovered  in  me?”  The  Vicar  re¬ 
plied:  “Nothing;  if  we  had,  you  would  have  been  pun¬ 
ished.  You  might  even  have  been  sent  to  the  stake.” 
Loyola  retorted:  “You,  too,  would  go  to  the  stake,  if  you 
were  a  heretic.”  The  Vicar  General  kept  his  temper,  and 
for  a  time  matters  went  on  as  before.  Ignatius  and  his 
disciples  changed  the  color  of  their  smocks  in  accordance 
with  the  terms  of  the  decree,  and  continued  to  teach  and 
preach.  Suspicion,  however,  kept  its  eye  on  these  serious 


ALCALA  77 

young  men,  nominally  students,  who  did  not  give  any  great 
part  of  their  time  to  their  university  courses,  but  went  about 
holding  little  conventicles  and  comforting  distressed  women. 
In  the  following  March,  the  Vicar  General  was  again  con¬ 
ducting  an  examination.  Perhaps  he  thought  there  had 
been  too  sharp  a  tone  of  defiance  in  Loyola’s  retort,  or  it 
may  be  that  public  opinion  in  Alcala  demanded  further  in¬ 
vestigation.  The  illuminati  had  always  been  objects  of 
suspicion.  Moreover,  the  Lutheran  heresy  was  becoming 
better  known  in  Spain,  and  the  Inquisition  may  have  felt 
itself  bound  to  be  on  the  alert.  Or,  possibly,  the  Emperor 
himself  may  have  given  some  sort  of  hint  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Toledo  that  officious  piety  at  home  might  atone  for  a 
little  lack  of  reverence  abroad.  Only  the  autumn  before, 
the  imperial  ambassador,  Don  Hugo  de  Moncada,  for  the 
purpose  of  forcing  the  Emperor’s  will  upon  the  Pope, 
Clement  VII,  had  taken  part  with  members  of  the  Colonna 
family  in  a  raid  upon  Rome.  The  raiders  had  failed  to  cap¬ 
ture  the  Pope,  but  their  followers  rioted  through  the  city. 
Baldassare  Castiglione,  the  papal  ambassador  in  attend¬ 
ance  upon  the  Emperor,  at  Granada,  wrote  home:  “All 
ranks,  high  and  low,  are  indignant  at  the  raid;  the  very 
stones  cry  out.”  But  whatever  the  cause,  the  Vicar  General 
this  time  conducted  the  investigation  himself.  I  again 
quote  the  record: 

Alcala  de  Henares,  March  6th,  1527.  The  Rev.  Senor 
Licenciado  Juan  Rodriguez  de  Figueroa,  vicar  general, 
summoned  before  him  Mencia  de  Benavente,  widow  of 
Juan  de  Benavente,  deceased.  She  took  the  oath  on  the 
cross. 

He  asked  her  if  she  knew  a  man  by  name  Inigo  who  lived 
at  the  Hospital  of  Mercy,  known  as  the  Hospital  of  Ante- 
zana.  She  said  that  she  knew  him  and  three  others  who 
went  about  with  him ;  she  knew  Inigo  by  sight,  by  his  speech 
and  his  manner,  and  also  another  man  named  Calisto;  the 
other  two  she  knew  only  by  sight. 

Asked  if  she  knew  whether  the  said  Inigo,  or  any  of  his 
companions  collected  people  together  in  churches  or  houses 


78 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


or  anywhere,  and  whether  they  taught  or  preached,  and 
what  they  taught  and  how,  and  bidden  to  tell  all  she  knew, 
testified  as  follows:  Inigo  had  held  a  reunion  in  her  (the 
witness’s)  house,  and  had  talked  to  several  women,  to  wit: 
one  Maria  Dias  and  her  daughter  (Maria  Dias  was  the  wife 
of  Francisco,  a  weaver) ;  and  a  friend  who  had  lived  with 
the  wife  of  Fernando  Dias,  who  had  been  confined,  and  was 
a  widow;  and  the  servant  of  Loranca,  chaplain  of  St.  Just; 
and  Inez,  servant  of  Luis  Arenes,  the  witness’s  sister;  and 
Maria,  servant  of  Luisa  Velasquez  who  lives  by  the  bakery 
called  “of  the  flowers”;  and  another  Maria,  who  lived  in 
the  house  of  Anna  Dias,  a  neighbor  of  the  witness;  and 
Maria  Dias,  of  Ocana,  a  widow,  who  wished  to  strangle  her¬ 
self,  but  the  witness  had  cut  the  cord  on  her  throat;  and 
other  women  and  girls;  and  the  witness’s  daughter,  Ana; 
and  Leonora,  who  goes  with  her  (the  witness’s  daughter)  to 
weave.  Inigo  talked  to  these  women,  telling  about  the 
commandments  and  the  mortal  sins,  and  the  five  senses,  and 
the  faculties  of  the  soul;  and  he  explained  very  well;  and 
made  his  explanations  by  means  of  the  gospels,  and  of  St. 
Paul  and  other  saints;  and  told  them  to  examine  their  con¬ 
sciences  every  day,  twice  a  day,  thinking  over  any  sins  they 
had  committed,  in  front  of  an  image,  and  he  advised  them 
to  confess  every  week,  and  take  the  sacrament  at  the  same 
time. 

The  same  day  the  said  Vicar  summoned  before  him  Anna, 
daughter  of  Juan  de  Benavente,  and  of  Mencia  de  Bena- 
vente,  his  wife;  administered  the  oath  to  her,  and  asked 
what  Inigo  aforesaid  had  taught  her. 

She  testified  that  he  had  expounded  the  articles  of  faith, 
the  mortal  sins,  the  five  senses,  the  three  faculties  of  the 
soul,  and  other  good  things  concerning  the  service  of  God, 
and  told  her  things  out  of  the  gospels,  sometimes  when 
she  was  in  company  with  other  women,  and  sometimes 
alone. 

Asked  where  he  had  taught,  she  said,  sometimes  at  her 
house;  and  sometimes  at  the  hospital,  and  at  such  times 
the  witness’s  mother  took  her;  and  at  other  times  she  went 
with  some  neighbors,  who  went  there;  and  when  they  went 


ALCALA  79 

to  the  hospital  there  were  many  women,  and  at  other  times 
she  had  seen  no  women. 

Asked  how  old  she  was,  she  said  seventeen  years  old. 
Inigo  bade  her  go  to  confession  every  week;  she  had  also 
heard  Calisto,  who  told  them  in  what  way  they  ought  to 
serve  God. 

And  this  was  all  she  knew,  according  to  her  oath. 

The  same  day  the  Vicar  General  summoned  before  him, 
Leonora,  daughter  of  Anna  de  Menna,  wife  of  Andreas 
Lopez,  the  witness’s  father-in-law.  She  made  oath  on  the 
cross,  etc. 

The  Vicar  asked  her  whether  she  had  heard  Inigo,  and 
what  he  had  taught.  Witness  testified  that  she  had  heard 
him  explain  the  commandments  of  the  Church,  and  the  five 
senses,  and  other  matters  that  concerned  the  service  of  God. 

Asked  her  age,  she  said  sixteen. 

Asked  where  Inigo  had  taught,  she  said  in  the  hospital 
where  there  were  also  other  women.  And  that  he  had  talked 
to  them  all  together. 

Nothing  further  was  done  at  the  time,  but  two  months 
later  the  hearing  was  continued  and  more  witnesses  were 
examined. 

May  2,  1527 :  The  said  Maria  de  la  Flor,  daughter  of 
Fernando  de  la  Flor,  an  inhabitant  of  the  town,  being  duly 
sworn,  testified  what  she  knew  of  Inigo,  as  follows:  She 
had  seen  him  often  go  into  the  house  of  Mencia  de  Bena^ 
vente,  aunt  of  the  deponent;  and  the  two  often  talked  to¬ 
gether  in  private;  witness  had  asked  her  aunt  and  cousin 
what  he  said  to  them  and  to  the  other  women  who  came  in, 
and  they  said  that  he  explained  how  to  serve  God.  They 
told  him  their  troubles  and  he  comforted  them. 

The  witness  told  them  that  she  wished  to  speak  to  him; 
so  she  did,  and  asked  him  to  teach  her  how  to  serve  God. 
And  Inigo  told  her  that  the  instruction  must  last  a  month ; 
and  that  during  the  month  she  must  confess  and  take  the 
eucharist  every  week ;  and  that  the  first  week  she  would  be 


80 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


very  light-hearted  and  yet  not  know  why,  and  the  second 
week  she  would  be  very  sad;  but  that  he  trusted  in  God 
that  she  would  derive  much  benefit,  and  that  if  at  the  end 
of  the  month  she  felt  in  a  good  state,  why,  well  and  good, 
but  if  not,  to  do  it  all  over  again.  And  he  told  her  that  he 
must  explain  the  three  faculties  of  the  mind,  and  so  he  did, 
and  the  merit  to  be  got  out  of  temptation;  and  how  a  venial 
sin  became  a  mortal  sin;  and  the  Ten  Commandments,  and 
things  about  them;  and  the  mortal  sins;  and  the  five  senses; 
and  all  such  matters. 

And  he  told  her  that  if  a  woman  spoke  to  any  girl  of 
something  evil,  and  the  girl  refused  to  listen  to  her,  there 
was  no  sin,  mortal  or  venial;  but  if  at  any  time  the  girl 
listened,  she  committed  a  venial  sin ;  but  if  she  listened  and 
did  what  the  woman  suggested,  she  committed  a  mortal  sin ; 
and  he  told  her  that  it  was  her  duty  to  love  God. 

He  also  told  her  that  in  entering  upon  the  service  of  God, 
temptations  would  come  from  the  Devil;  and  he  explained 
to  her  the  examination  of  the  conscience,  and  that  she  should 
examine  her  conscience  twice  a  day,  after  dinner,  and  after 
supper;  and  that  she  should  kneel  down  and  say:  “0  God, 
my  Father  and  Creator,  I  thank  Thee  for  all  the  mercies 
Thou  has  shown  me,  and  for  those  I  trust  Thou  wilt  show 
me.  I  beseech  Thee,  by  the  merits  of  Thy  passion,  to  give 
me  grace  to  examine  my  conscience  thoroughly.” 

And  she  had  related  to  Inigo  a  thought  that  she  had  had 
and  that  she  had  confessed  to  her  confessor,  and  the  con¬ 
fessor  had  told  her  that  it  was  a  mortal  sin,  and  she  had 
confessed  and  received  the  holy  sacrament  the  same  day. 
And  Inigo  had  said  to  her:  “Would  to  God  you  had  not 
got  up  that  morning,”  because  the  fault  she  said  she  had 
confessed  was  not  a  mortal  sin  nor  even  a  venial  one,  on  the 
contrary  it  was  a  right  thought;  and  he  said  he  would  have 
a  talk  with  Calisto,  his  companion,  and  tell  him  about  it  and 
see  what  he  would  say.  And  so  he  told  it  to  Calisto;  and 
Calisto  said  just  what  Inigo  had  said.  And  on  another  day 
Calisto  bade  her  tell  Leonora,  who  was  learning  to  weave 
from  the  witness’s  aunt  Benavente,  that  since  Leonora  told 
her  confessor  what  he  (Calisto)  talked  about  with  them,  she 


ALCALA  81 

might  go  to  her  confessor  for  help.  And  another  time  he 
told  her  that  there  was  no  need  to  repeat  to  her  confessor 
what  she  had  talked  over  with  him  and  Inigo. 

And  four  times  it  happened  that  a  great  sense  of  sadness 
came  over  the  witness,  so  that  nothing  seemed  right,  and 
she  could  not  even  lift  up  her  eyes  to  look  at  Inigo;  but 
if  in  the  midst  of  this  sadness  she  spoke  to  Inigo  or  Calisto, 
the  sadness  left  her.  And  her  aunt  Benavente  and  her 
cousin  said  the  same  thing,  for  a  very  black  sadness  came 
upon  them.  And  witness  asked  Inigo,  what  these  sad  fits 
were  and  what  they  came  from;  and  Inigo  said  that  when 
one  was  entering  upon  the  service  of  God,  the  Devil  put 
them  in  one’s  path ;  but  that  she  should  stay  steadfast  in  the 
service  of  God,  and  that,  through  the  love  of  God,  they 
would  pass  away.  And  that  when  she  said  an  Ave  Maria , 
she  should  utter  a  sigh  and  fix  her  mind  on  the  words  Ave 
Maria,  and  then  she  should  say  gratia  plena  and  fix  her 
mind  on  those  words. 

And  both  Inigo  and  Calisto  were  much  pleased  when 
these  fits  of  sadness  and  faintness  came  upon  her,  because 
they  said  she  was  entering  on  the  service  of  God. 

And  he  told  her  never  to  swear  or  utter  an  oath,  such  as 
“God  help  me”  or,  “on  my  life,”  but  only  “certes.”  And  if 
she  saw  anybody  in  the  service  of  God,  she  was  not  to  feel 
envy,  but  encouragement. 

And  the  witness  saw  Maria  (the  girl  that  lived  with  her 
aunt  Benavente)  in  a  swoon  on  the  ground;  and  Maria 
said  she  had  seen  the  Devil  with  her  eyes,  very  black  and 
big;  so  they  called  Calisto;  witness  went  home,  but  they 
told  her  Calisto  had  come  and  lifted  Maria  up. 

And  witness  had  formerly  been  a  bad  woman,  keeping 
company  with  students  of  the  university,  and  had  been 
ruined.  And  when  she  thought  of  talking  to  Inigo,  and  did 
not  talk  to  him  very  soon,  a  faintness  came  upon  her,  and 
she  felt  sick  at  heart  till  he  spoke  to  her.  .  .  .  And  once 
deponent  felt  a  great  desire  to  go  to  the  desert,  and  she 
asked  Calisto  for  his  opinion,  and  he  said  it  was  a  good  idea, 
and  to  carry  it  out.  .  .  . 

She  further  declared  that  they,  Inigo  and  Calisto,  rejoiced 


82 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


if  any  woman  had  a  great  desire  to  speak  to  them,  for  they 
said  that  they  should  win  her  soul.  .  .  . 

May  14,  1527:  Anna  de  Benavente,  was  duly  sworn,  etc. 
The  Vicar  General  asked  her  to  describe  how  the  fainting 
fits  came  on  her,  and  on  other  women  who  conversed  with 
Inigo  and  Calisto. 

Witness  said  that,  according  to  the  best  of  her  recollection, 
since  she  began  to  talk  with  those  two  she  had  been  taken 
by  a  fainting  fit  three  or  four  times,  and  that  she  was  taken 
in  this  manner:  While  she  was  thinking  how  she  had 
separated  herself  from  the  world,  in  her  way  of  dressing, 
and  gossiping,  and  amusing  herself,  a  fit  of  sadness  came 
upon  her  and  a  feeling  of  faintness,  and  sometimes  fainting 
fits  took  her  and  she  lost  consciousness.  Twice  she  had  been 
nauseated;  and  rolled  on  the  ground.  Some  people  seized 
her  but  could  not  quiet  her.  The  fit  lasted  an  hour;  at 
other  times,  it  was  longer  or  shorter.  And  when  Inigo  and 
Calisto  were  told  what  had  happened,  they  said  to  her  that 
it  was  nothing,  and  that  she  should  strengthen  herself  in 
God. 

Other  women,  too,  had  these  fainting  fits;  some  in  one 
way,  some  in  another.  Leonora,  daughter  of  Anna  de 
Menna,  her  mother’s  servant,  had  these  turns  oftener  than 
the  others,  and  they  lasted  an  hour;  and  Leonora  said  that 
sometimes  she  was  conscious,  and  sometimes  not.  Witness 
had  also  seen  Maria  de  la  Flor,  daughter  of  Fernando  de  la 
Flor,  faint  away,  and  Anna  Dias,  and  two  other  girls  who 
did  not  live  in  Alcala. 

When  asked  what  happened  when  Maria  de  la  Flor 
wanted  to  go  to  the  desert  and  lead  the  life  of  Saint  Mary 
of  Egypt,  witness  said  that  the  same  thing  happened  to 
her.  She  often  wanted  to  go  into  the  country  and  lead  a 
solitary  life;  and  in  her  presence  Maria  de  la  Flor  consulted 
Calisto,  and  Calisto  told  her  to  pray  to  the  Virgin  Mary  to 
inspire  her  with  what  would  tend  most  to  the  service  of 
God;  for  it  might  be  sin  that  prompted  the  thought.  And 
Maria  de  la  Flor  said  that  she  would  go  with  Calisto,  and 
Calisto  asked  how  she  dared  go  with  him  as  she  did  not 


ALCALA  83 

know  him.  Witness  did  not  remember  what  Maria 
answered,  except  that  after  Calisto  had  gone,  she  said  she 
might  go  and  live  with  him  in  the  same  way  she  would  with 
a  woman. 

Leonora,  aforesaid,  daughter  of  Anna  de  Menna,  a  resi¬ 
dent  of  the  town,  being  duly  sworn,  etc. 

Interrogated  about  the  fainting  fits  which  came  upon  her 
when  conversing  with  Inigo  and  Calisto,  she  said  it  was  true. 
Often,  when  she  was  thinking  how  she  had  abandoned  her 
old  ways  of  laughing  and  fun,  and  that  she  had  been  better 
off  before,  a  sadness  came  upon  her,  and  she  lost  conscious¬ 
ness,  neither  heard  nor  felt,  and  the  sense  of  oppression 
brought  on  nausea,  and  she  rolled  on  the  ground.  Inigo  said 
that  the  enemy  was  the  cause  of  it,  and  bade  her  think  upon 
God  and  His  passion,  and  the  fit  would  pass  away. 

And,  besides,  the  same  thing  happened  to  Maria  de  la 
Flor,  Anna  Dias,  and  the  Benavente  girl,  and  other  girls, 
who  did  not  live  in  the  town,  but  in  Murcia. 

And  Inigo  bade  her  confess  every  week,  and  to  receive 
the  sacrament  every  month. 

Mencia  de  Benavente,  being  duly  sworn,  etc. 

Being  asked  about  the  fainting  fits  that  came  upon  her 
and  other  women  who  conversed  with  Inigo  and  his  com¬ 
panions,  and  told  to  tell  how  often  and  what  they  were  like, 
she  said  that  she  had  hysterics,  and  also  sometimes  fainting 
fits;  she  thought  they  were  hysterical. 

She  had  seen  Leonora,  daughter  of  Anna  de  Menna,  after 
a  conversation  with  Inigo,  seized  by  a  fainting  fit,  fall  on 
the  ground,  be  sick  at  her  stomach,  and  roll  round  on  the 
ground.  And  that  her  (witness’)  daughter  had  sweating 
fits,  and  she  had  seen  Anna  Dias,  wife  of  Alonso  de  la  Cruz, 
in  swoons,  and  she  had  also  seen  Maria  from  Santorcas 
(who  did  not  live  in  Alcala)  in  a  swoon  twice,  falling  on  the 
ground,  and  putting  her  hands  to  her  breast  as  if  she  were 
going  to  vomit,  and  also  another  girl,  from  Yelamos,  who 
lived  in  Anna  Dias’s  house,  in  swoons,  and  she,  too,  threw 
herself  on  the  ground,  and  vomited,  and  rolled  on  the 
ground.  And  that  is  the  truth. 


84 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Anna  Dias,  wife  of  Alonso  de  la  Cruz,  being  duly  sworn, 
etc.,  corroborated  the  last  witness  as  to  Maria  from  Yelamos. 
Witness  had  seen  her  swoon  more  than  twenty  times. 

The  testimony  of  witnesses  ended  here. 


CHAPTER  IX 


ALCALA  AND  SALAMANCA  (1526-1527) 

I  have  quoted  the  records  of  the  first  two  investigations 
into  Loyola’s  missions  and  manner  of  life  in  full,  and  I  shall 
also  quote  the  third,  for  several  reasons.  One  is  that  these 
records  furnish  the  only  evidence  of  his  life  at  this  time 
that  does  not  come  from  himself  or  his  disciples.  Another, 
that  they  tell  something  of  contemporary  life.  But  my 
main  reason  is  this:  The  record  shows  that  Ignatius  was 
beginning  his  apostolic  ministry  among  the  lowest  classes 
of  society,  simple  artisans  and  ignorant  peasants,  the  basis 
on  which  the  great  edifice  of  the  Roman  Church  must  rest. 
Other  men,  in  plenty,  spoke  of  needed  reforms  within  the 
Church,  but  they  were  thinking  of  cardinals  and  bishops, 
of  friars  and  monks,  and  persons  in  high  station;  Ignatius 
alone  had  the  sagacity  to  see  that  the  Church  must  be  re¬ 
formed,  purified,  christianized,  from  the  very  bottom.  The 
fate  of  Christianity  does  not  depend  on  the  priesthood,  but 
on  the  laity.  Tradition  says  that  the  great  Pope,  Innocent 
III,  dreamed  that  he  saw  St.  Francis  holding  up  the  totter¬ 
ing  edifice  of  the  Universal  Church.  Clement  VII  might 
well  have  dreamed  a  similar  dream  of  Ignatius.  Reform, 
of  course,  had  been  talked  of  long  before  Luther.  In  Spain, 
the  great  prelate,  Cardinal  Ximenes,  who  may  be  compared 
to  Wolsey  in  England,  or  Richelieu  in  France,  had  begun 
the  reformation  of  the  monastic  orders  in  the  reign  of 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  And,  at  the  period  we  are  come  to, 
Clement  VII,  Charles  V,  cardinals,  bishops,  princes,  were 
haranguing  and  talking  of  mending  and  tinkering;  they  pro¬ 
posed  at  one  time  to  suppress  Luther,  at  another  time  to 
appease  him ;  they  equipped  galleys  and  enlisted  soldiers  to 
fight  the  Turk,  in  the  cause,  as  they  said,  of  religion. 

85 


86 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Loyola,  alone — for  the  Italian  reformers  who  founded  the 
Oratory  of  Divine  Love  and  other  such  societies,  wished 
to  purify  themselves,  or  the  priesthood,  or  some  monastic 
order — recognized  that  the  Church  of  Christ  must 
strengthen,  comfort  and  ennoble  each  individual  soul,  and 
if  it  should  do  so,  there  need  be  no  further  worry  over 
heresy  and  schism.  This  was  the  way  to  hamstring  the 
wild  horse  of  heresy  in  Germany,  and  to  loose  the  cord  of 
the  Mohammedan  bow.  Loyola’s  instruction  of  these 
simple  folks  in  the  dogmas  of  the  Church,  in  the  command¬ 
ments  of  Christ,  in  duty  and  decency,  in  the  primary  facul¬ 
ties  of  the  mind  and  the  uses  to  which  they  should  be  put, 
marks  the  rudimentary  beginning  of  Jesuit  education.  This 
is  the  germ  that  grew  into  the  great  teaching  staff  of  Europe. 

I  now  return  to  the  official  record  of  the  third  and  last 
inquisitorial  proceeding  against  Ignatius  at  Alcala.  This 
was  a  matter  of  greater  consequence.  Ignatius  was  arrested, 
and  put  in  jail,  probably  on  or  about  April  30th,  1527, 
rather,  from  the  nature  of  the  complaint,  it  would  seem, 
or  from  the  importance  of  the  complainants,  than  because 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  were  ill  disposed  toward  him. 
Public  opinion  of  some  sort  was  aroused ;  one  young  noble¬ 
man,  it  is  reported,  declared  that  Loyola  ought  to  go  to  the 
stake.  For  many  days  he  was  not  told  the  nature  of  his 
offense,  and  then  he  learned  that  two  ladies,  mother  and 
daughter,  had  gone  off,  on  foot,  upon  a  pilgrimage  to  Jaen, 
a  town  two  hundred  miles  to  the  south,  near  Granada,  in 
order  to  see  the  holy  handkerchief  of  St.  Veronica,  and  that 
this  escapade  had  caused  much  scandal  and  had  been  laid 
at  his  door.  The  Judge  waited  until  news  from  the  ladies 
must  have  made  his  innocence  clear,  and  then  examined  him 
with  reference  to  all  the  suspicious  facts  elicited  in  the  testi¬ 
mony  that  had  been  taken.  I  quote  the  official  record: 

May  15,  1527,  in  the  city  of  Alcala.  The  said  Vicar  went 
to  the  ecclesiastical  jail  and  had  Inigo  brought  before  him. 

First  Point:  He  said  that  Inigo  well  knew  that  before 
last  Christmas  he  had  commanded  him  not  to  hold  any 
meeting  in  the  nature  of  a  conventicle,  whether  or  not  under 


ALCALA  AND  SALAMANCA  87 

the  guise  of  teaching  or  instructing — such  had  been  the 
tenor  of  his  order — and  that  Ignatius  had  not  obeyed  but 
had  done  just  the  contrary,  and  stood  under  a  charge  of 
disobedience  to  the  commands  of  our  holy  mother  Church ; 
that  if  he  had  any  excuse,  to  plead  it,  as  the  Vicar  was  ready 
to  accept  it.  Ignatius  replied  that,  there  had  been  no  com¬ 
mand,  not  even  by  way  of  precept;  but  that  if  some  refer¬ 
ence  had  been  made  to  this  matter,  it  was  a  kind  of  advice, 
but  just  what,  he  did  not  remember. 

Second  Point:  With  reference  to  the  persons  with  whom 
Ignatius  had  been  in  communication,  especially  as  to  the 
women  whom  he  had  taught,  the  Vicar  had  been  informed 
that  it  was  usual  for  them  to  swoon  away  after  his  visit, 
to  lose  all  consciousness  in  a  sort  of  ecstacy.  Would  he 
please  state  the  cause  of  these  swoons,  and  what  he  had 
to  do  with  them. 

To  this  Ignatius  replied,  that  he  had  seen  five  or  six 
women  in  swoons;  that  the  cause  to  which  he  attributed 
them  was  that,  as  these  women  became  of  better  conduct 
and  refrained  from  sin,  great  temptations  came  upon  them, 
sometimes  from  the  Devil,  sometimes  from  their  relations, 
and  caused  the  swoons.  They  were  a  consequence  of  the 
loathing  they  felt  for  sin.  He  comforted  them  when  he 
saw  them,  bidding  them  be  steadfast  under  temptations 
and  pains,  and  telling  them  that,  if  they  did  so,  within  two 
months  they  would  not  feel  such  temptations  any  more. 
He  had  said  this  because,  as  he  thought,  he  had  learned 
it  from  his  own  personal  experience  of  temptation,  although 
he  had  never  swooned. 

Third  Point:  It  was  alleged  that  Ignatius  had  advised 
some  women  of  Alcala,  or  elsewhere,  married  or  maidens, 
to  tell  what  had  passed  between  them  and  their  confessors 
in  the  confessional,  and  had  bidden  them  to  confess  certain 
things  and  not  others,  and  had  advised  some  of  the  afore¬ 
said  persons,  to  leave  their  families,  and  go  roaming  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  places  very  far  away  from  their  homes. 

Ignatius  answered  that  some  persons  had  disclosed  to 
him  certain  conscientious  scruples,  and  as  he  knew  that 
these  were  not  sinful,  he  had  said  not  to  bother  about  con- 


88 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


fessing  them;  but  he  had  advised  them  to  confess  what¬ 
ever  in  his  judgment  were  sins.  That  was  all  there  was 
to  it.  He  denied  that  he  had  inquired  or  tried  to  learn 
what  had  passed  between  priest  and  penitent  in  the 
confessional. 

Here  ended  Loyola’s  examination.  As  to  the  evangelical 
mission,  the  religious  teachings  and  so  forth,  it  was  plain 
enough  that  everything,  however  unconventional,  was  inno¬ 
cent  enough,  and,  more  than  that,  was  praiseworthy.  The 
persons  concerned  were  peasants  and  they  made  no  com¬ 
plaint.  But  the  accusation  that  the  defendant  had  advised 
ladies  to  go,  without  escort,  hundreds  of  miles  through  a 
country  where  they  might  be  exposed  to  many  dangers, 
was  another  matter.  The  Vicar  General  no  doubt  believed 
what  Ignatius  said,  but  it  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  the 
ladies’  family  would  rest  content  with  the  defendant’s  testi¬ 
mony  in  his  own  favor.  So,  on  that  point  of  the  accusa¬ 
tion,  further  investigation  was  necessary.  I  return  to  the 
official  record. 

May  21,  1527.  Luisa  Velasquez,  a  resident  of  the  city, 
being  duly  sworn,  in  answer  to  the  questions  put  by  the 
Vicar  as  to  what  she  knew,  and  had  seen  or  heard,  of 
Inigo  and  his  friends,  and  where  she  had  been  the  days 
she  was  out  of  the  city  during  Lent,  testified  as  follows: 
She  had  been  at  Jaen,  and  to  Our  Lady  of  Guadalupe,  with 
her  mother,  and  her  maid,  Catalina.  Asked  by  whose 
advice  she  had  gone  on  this  pilgrimage,  she  said,  by  her 
mother’s.  She  had  gone  in  order  to  accompany  her  mother, 
and  also  because  of  her  devotion  to  those  shrines.  Asked 
as  to  her  relations  with  Inigo  and  his  companions,  she 
said  that  she  had  known  them  from  before  Christmas;  she 
had  met  and  talked  with  them  in  her  mother’s  house  twice, 
and  in  the  house  of  Mencia  de  Benavente,  and  in  the  house 
of  Beatris  Ramires;  and  twice  she  had  been  to  the  hospital 
to  speak  to  Inigo.  Asked  in  what  manner  Inigo  taught  her, 
and  what,  she  answered  that  first  of  all  he  taught  the  com¬ 
mandments;  and  afterwards  in  the  house  of  Mencia  de 


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ALCALA  AND  SALAMANCA 

Benavente,  when  Mencia  and  three  or  four  other  women 
were  there  together,  he  told  them  of  the  life  of  St.  Anne 
and  of  Joseph,  and  of  other  saints,  and  said  something  else 
that  she  does  not  remember.  Asked  whether  she  had  been 
seized  by  any  fainting  fits,  she  said  no,  although  in  Mencia’s 
house  she  had  seen  a  daughter  of  Fernando  de  la  Flor  and 
some  other  girls  faint  away.  Asked  how  often  Inigo  ad¬ 
vised  her  to  confess  and  take  the  sacrament,  she  replied 
every  eight  days  if  she  felt  so  disposed. 

Maria  del  Vado,  widow,  a  resident  of  the  city,  being  duly 
sworn,  etQ.  Asked  where  she  had  been  during  the  days 
that  she  had  been  absent,  answered  that  she  had  been  to 
Jaen,  she  and  her  daughter  Luisa,  to  see  the  Veronica, 
which  is  at  Our  Lady  of  Guadalupe.  Asked  by  whose 
advice  she  had  gone  on  that  pilgrimage,  she  answered  that 
she  had  not  done  it  on  anybody’s  advice,  but  of  her  own 
will;  she  took  her  daughter  and  a  maid  servant  with  her. 
Asked  if  she  had  had  any  communication  with  Inigo  or 
Calisto,  or  any  of  their  companions  before  going  away  or 
afterwards,  she  said  that  before  she  went  away  she  had 
spoken  to  Inigo  several  times,  and  considered  him  a  good 
man  and  a  servant  of  God,  and  did  so  still. 

Catalina,  wife  of  Francisco  de  Trillo,  a  resident  of  the 
city,  being  sworn  as  a  witness,  etc.  Asked  where  she  had 
been  while  she  was  away  from  the  city,  said  that  her  mis¬ 
tress,  Maria  del  Vado,  had  gone  to  Jaen  and  to  Guadalupe, 
and  had  taken  her  and  her  daughter  Luisa.  Asked  if  she 
had  had  any  communication  with  Inigo  or  any  of  his  com¬ 
panions,  she  said  no. 

The  Vicar  General  did  not  issue  his  decision  in  the 
matter  till  June  1st.  Perhaps  the  celebrations  held  in  honor 
of  the  birth  of  the  royal  heir,  destined  to  become  Philip 
II,  distracted  his  attention ;  or  the  news  of  the  sack  of  Rome 
by  the  Imperial  army  (May  6th)  which  horrified  many 
devout  Catholics  and  set  the  Emperor’s  servants  to  work 
upon  apology  and  excuse.  His  order  was  that  Loyola 
wuthin  ten  days  should  take  off  the  costume  he  wore,  which 


90 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


was  a  sort  of  loose  cassock,  and  wear  what  citizens  usually 
wore,  either  clerical  or  lay,  as  he  might  wish.  And  further 
that  for  the  space  of  three  years  he  should  not  teach  or 
instruct  anybody,  man  or  woman,  of  whatever  rank  or 
condition,  in  public  or  in  private  ;  he  should  not  hold  meet¬ 
ings  or  meet  persons  for  religious  purposes  one  by  one,  nor 
do  any  such  sort  of  thing;  he  must  not  expound  the  com¬ 
mandments,  nor  any  matter  that  touched  the  Holy  Catholic 
Faith.  And  further,  at  the  end  of  three  years,  this  injunc¬ 
tion  should  still  hold  good  unless  the  proper  authority 
should  then  give  him  license  to  teach. 

From  this  decree  it  appears  that  the  ecclesiastical  authori¬ 
ties  felt  the  stiffening  of  public  opinion,  or  at  least  greater 
strictness  at  the  Imperial  court.  Vagabond  and  unlicensed 
preachers  were  not  to  be  permitted  to  hold  conventicles, 
or  preach  or  teach  as  they  might  choose,  nor  were  un¬ 
licensed  persons  to  be  allowed  to  wear  clothes  that  appeared 
to  denote  some  religious  order,  but  in  fact  did  not.  None 
of  these  provisions  seem  unreasonable,  but  Ignatius  was 
dissatisfied  with  the  prohibition  against  religious  instruc¬ 
tion,  for  that  was  to  be  his  life  work  and  he  would  not 
forego  it.  He  went  to  the  archbishop  of  Toledo  himself, 
Don  Alonso  de  Fonseca.  This  prelate  having  accepted  the 
dedication  of  the  Enchiridion ,  was  exercising  his  ingenuity 
in  protecting  Erasmus  from  the  angry  friars,  and  did  not 
wish  to  embroil  himself  in  other  delicate  matters.  He  was 
politic,  suggested  that  Loyola  and  his  friends  should  betake 
themselves  to  the  University  of  Salamanca,  and  offered 
money  for  the  journey.  This  seemed  a  happy  solution;  the 
young  men  accepted  it,  and  migrated  to  Salamanca. 

Loyola’s  studies  could  not  have  profited  much  from  his 
stay  at  Alcala.  His  imprisonment,  as  well  as  his  missions 
and  evangelical  visits,  must  have  interfered  seriously  with 
his  studies.  As  he  looked  back  in  later  years,  his  comment 
was  that  he  had  tried  to  do  too  much,  scattering  his  atten¬ 
tion  on  too  many  subjects.  His  comment,  as  his  disciples 
understood  it,  is  made  to  refer  to  too  many  courses  at 
the  university,  but  that  is  evidently  a  mistake;  he  did  too 
many  outside  things.  The  upshot  was  that  he  went  away 


91 


ALCALA  AND  SALAMANCA 

little  better  furnished  with  learning  than  when  he  came. 
Nevertheless,  he  left  a  name  there  as  an  evangelical  mis¬ 
sionary,  and  either  through  that  reputation,  or  by  personal 
meeting,  came  to  be  known  to  various  young  men,  Lainez, 
Salmeron,  Bobadilla,  Jeronimo  Nadal,  Manuel  Miona,  and 
Martin  de  Olave,  who  afterwards  became  leading  disciples. 

At  Salamanca,  however,  matters  went  still  worse.  To 
begin  with,  clothes  had  been  given  them,  in  order  to  enable 
them  to  comply  with  the  court’s  decree,  and  they  were 
dressed  like  students;  but  Calisto,  who  was  a  tall  fellow, 
had  clothes  too  small  for  him,  a  short  tunic,  a  big  hat,  boots 
that  came  half  up  his  legs,  and  a  pilgrim’s  staff;  he  looked 
like  a  guy.  Nevertheless,  they  continued  their  evangelical 
ways.  Suspicious  reports,  of  course,  spread  about.  The 
consequence  was  that  at  the  end  of  ten  or  twelve  days, 
Loyola’s  confessor,  a  Dominican  monk,  invited  him  and 
Calisto  to  come  to  the  monastery  for  Sunday  dinner,  saying 
that  the  fathers  would  like  to  ask  him  some  questions. 
After  dinner,  the  subprior  (the  prior  was  absent)  took  the 
two  guests  into  the  chapel,  and  began  an  examination : 

Subprior  (affecting  affability).  It  gives  me  great  in¬ 
ward  satisfaction  to  hear  of  your  saintly  way  of  living,  how 
you  go  about  like  the  apostles,  and  teach  men  the  road 
to  heaven.  All  my  brethren  share  my  pleasure  in  this. 
Only  in  order  to  round  out  our  happiness,  we  should  like 
to  hear  from  your  own  lips  things  a  little  more  in  detail. 
Tell  us  from  what  University  you  hold  a  degree,  and  what 
sort  of  a  degree,  and  what  in  particular  you  have  studied. 

Ignatius.  I  have  studied  more  than  my  companions, 
but  I  have  little  learning.  He  then  explained  just  how 
little. 

Subprior.  How  does  it  happen,  then,  that  with  so  little 
learning,  no  more  than  the  bare  rudiments  of  grammar,  you 
go  about  preaching? 

Ignatius.  My  comrades  and  I  do  not  preach,  Father, 
we  merely  talk  in  a  familiar  way,  when  occasion  serves, 
about  what  we  know  concerning  divine  matters;  after 
dinner,  for  instance,  when  we  are  invited  out. 


92 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Subprior.  That  is  just  what  we  want  to  know;  what 
are  these  divine  matters  that  you  talk  about? 

Ignatius.  We  talk  about  the  beauty  and  excellence  of 
virtue,  about  the  shame  and  ugliness  of  sin,  and  try  to  lead 
our  listeners  to  good  and  to  turn  them  from  evil.  Some¬ 
times  we  talk  of  one  virtue,  sometimes  of  another,  and  in 
like  manner,  of  sins. 

Subprior.  But  you  admit  that  you  are  uneducated  men ; 
how  then  can  you  speak  wisely  concerning  virtues  and 
vices?  Those  things  are  to  be  learned  only  in  one  of  two 
ways,  either  by  study  or  by  a  revelation  from  God.  Well, 
now,  you  have  not  learned  them  by  study.  The  only  other 
way  is  that  the  Holy  Ghost  has  revealed  them  to  you.  We 
are  curious  to  learn  how  that  happened.  Please  be  kind 
enough  to  tell  us  the  revelations  you  have  had. 

Ignatius  never  went  off  at  half  cock.  He  always  acted 
and  spoke  with  deliberation.  He  paused  a  moment  to 
reflect;  and  then  said:  “That  is  enough,  Father;  we  will 
proceed  no  further  in  this  matter.”  The  subprior  insisted, 
and  pressed  for  an  answer.  “How  is  this?  Just  at  this 
time  when  so  many  errors  have  been  taught  by  Erasmus 
and  by  others  who  have  misled  numbers  of  people?  And 
you  refuse  to  speak  out?” 

Ignatius.  Father,  I  shall  say  no  more  than  I  have  said, 
except  before  my  superiors,  who  have  the  right  to  give  me 
orders. 

Subprior.  Well  and  good.  Wait  a  bit,  we  will  compel 
you  to  confess  the  truth. 

The  case  was  reported  to  the  Bishop’s  tribunal,  and  after 
three  days  Ignatius  and  Calisto  were  taken  to  prison.  They 
were  lodged  in  a  filthy  upper  room,  with  their  ankles  fet¬ 
tered  together  by  a  short  stout  chain,  and  left  for  the  night. 
They  could  not  sleep  on  account  of  the  “gran  multitud  de 
bestias  varias”  and  passed  the  night  in  prayer.  Their 
friends,  however,  were  allowed  to  visit  them  and  bring 
them  necessaries,  and  Ignatius  talked  about  divine  things. 
His  copy  of  Spiritual  Exercises  was  taken  for  examination, 


93 


ALCALA  AND  SALAMANCA 

and  Caceres  and  Arteaga  were  also  arrested.  A  few  days 
later  Ignatius  was  brought  up  before  the  judges.  Many 
questions  were  put  to  him  concerning  the  Spiritual  Exer¬ 
cises,  about  the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation  and  Transubstan- 
tiation.  No  fault  was  found  with  what  he  said.  Then  they 
asked  him  in  what  manner  he  was  wont  to  expound  the  first 
great  commandment.  This  too  he  did  without  reproof. 
They  laid  stress,  however,  upon  one  point  at  the  beginning 
of  Spiritual  Exercises,  the  distinction  between  a  mortal  and 
a  venial  sin;  they  were  doubtful  whether  an  unlearned 
man  was  capable  of  making  so  delicate  and  important  a 
distinction.  Loyola  said:  “Is  it  true  or  not?  If  it  is  true, 
approve  it;  if  it  is  not  true,  then  condemn  it.”  But  the 
judges  would  not  commit  themselves. 

Among  those  who  came  to  see  him  was  a  nobleman, 
afterwards  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Burgos,  who  asked  him  if 
confinement  was  not  a  great  hardship.  Loyola  said:  “I  will 
answer  you  as  I  answered  a  lady  today  who  was  loud  in  her 
compassion  over  my  imprisonment.  I  said  to  her,  ‘Since 
this  jail  seems  to  you  such  an  evil,  it  shows  that  you  do  not 
desire  imprisonment  for  the  love  of  God,  but  I  tell  you 
that  there  are  not  so  many  chains  and  fetters  in  Salamanca 
as  I  desire  to  wear  for  love  of  Him?  ” 

It  happened  one  day  at  this  time,  that  all  the  other 
prisoners  burst  open  the  doors  of  the  jail  and  escaped,  but 
Loyola  and  his  companions  stayed;  and  that  made  an  ex¬ 
cellent  impression  on  the  townsfolk.  Finally,  after  twenty- 
two  days  of  imprisonment,  judgment  was  delivered.  They 
were  declared  innocent  and  orthodox,  and  might  continue 
teaching  and  discoursing  as  before,  so  long  as  they  did  not 
touch  the  matters  of  the  distinction  between  mortal  and 
venial  sins.  Loyola  said  he  would  not  abide  by  the  sen¬ 
tence;  no  condemnation  whatever  had  been  passed  upon 
him,  and  yet  his  mouth  was  stopped  from  helping  his  neigh¬ 
bors  where  he  might. 

In  consequence  he  made  up  his  mind  to  leave  Salamanca 
and  continue  his  education  at  the  University  of  Paris.  Be¬ 
yond  that  his  plans  were  indefinite,  he  might  join  some 
religious  order,  or  he  might  go  about  as  he  had  been  doing, 


94 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


with  some  companions,  exhorting,  comforting  and  helping. 
He  loaded  his  books  on  a  donkey,  bade  Calisto  and  the 
others  wait  until  they  should  hear  what  arrangements  he 
might  be  able  to  make  for  them  in  Paris,  and  set  off  for 
Barcelona,  where  he  hoped  no  doubt  to  get  money  and 
provisions  for  his  journey  from  Dona  Ines  Pascual  and 
other  friends.  His  stay  at  Salamanca  had  lasted  about  two 
months. 


CHAPTER  X 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PARIS  (1528-1535) 

Alone,  and  on  foot,  in  the  short  days  of  mid-winter, 
Loyola  set  out  from  Barcelona  on  his  way  to  Paris,  a  dis¬ 
tance  of  some  five  hundred  miles.  The  solitary  road,  the 
stark  defiles  of  the  Pyrenees,  the  winter  snows,  the  alarms 
of  his  friends,  the  stories  told  in  minute  detail  of  how  the 
French  clapped  into  an  oven  any  Spaniard  they  caught 
(for  Francis  I  had  broken  the  oaths  he  had  sworn  in 
captivity  and  the  two  countries  were  again  at  war),  and 
other  bugbears,  real  or  imaginary,  had  no  power  to  deter 
him.  With  a  bill  of  exchange  for  twenty-five  crowns  in 
his  pocket,  and  his  staff  in  his  hand,  he  followed  his  star. 
A  letter  written  a  month  after  his  arrival  in  Paris  speaks 
of  his  journey: 

Paris,  March  3,  1528. 

To  Dona  Ines  Pascual: 

May  the  true  peace  of  Our  Saviour  Christ  visit  and 
keep  our  souls. 

Considering  the  great  good  will  and  affection  that  in  God 
our  Saviour  you  have  always  had  toward  me  and  the  deeds 
by  which  you  have  shown  it,  I  have  had  it  in  mind  to  write 
you  this  from  the  time  I  left  you,  in  order  to  let  you  know 
about  my  journey.  By  the  grace  and  goodness  of  God  Our 
Saviour,  I  arrived  in  the  city  of  Paris  on  February  2d.  I 
had  very  good  weather  and  I  am  very  well.  I  mean  to  stay 
here  and  study  till  the  Lord  bids  me  do  something  else. 

Remember  me  affectionately  to  Juan  [her  son] ;  tell  him 
always  to  be  obedient  to  his  parents,  and  to  observe  the 
religious  days;  and,  if  he  does  his  life  shall  be  long  in  the 
land  of  the  living,  and  he  will  also  live  in  heaven  above. 

Remember  me  also  affectionately  to  your  neighbor.  Her 

95 


96 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


gifts  have  arrived.  Her  kindness  and  good  will — for  the 
sake  of  God  Our  Saviour — abide  with  me.  May  the  Lord 
of  the  world  reward  her;  and  may  He  of  His  infinite  good¬ 
ness  dwell  in  our  hearts,  so  that  His  will  shall  be 
accomplished. 

Your  poor  in  virtue  (de  bondad  pobre ) 

Inigo. 

Ignatius  may  have  travelled  north  by  the  way  by  which 
he  had  originally  come  from  Navarre,  then  to  Bayonne  and 
up  the  usual  road  via  Bordeaux,  Tours  and  Orleans,  but 
it  seems  more  likely  that  he  trudged  through  Catalonia  and 
across  the  mountains  to  Perpignan,  thence  to  Narbonne,  and 
to  Paris  either  by  Toulouse  or  along  the  river  Rhone.  The 
Paris  to  which  he  came  enjoyed  the  same  relative  pre¬ 
eminence  among  cities  as  it  does  now,  or  perhaps  greater. 
I  quote  a  description  of  it  made  about  this  time:  “The 
river  Seine,  forking  here,  separates  this  famous  city  into 
three  parts.  The  first  (on  the  left  bank),  is  VUniversite ; 
the  second  (which  is  the  island  made  by  the  fork)  is  la 
Cite ;  the  third  (on  the  north  side  of  the  river)  is  called 
la  Ville.  .  .  .  Charlemagne,  at  the  instigation  of  his  coun¬ 
sellor,  Alcuin,  founded  the  University  .  .  .  which  has  al¬ 
ways  been  a  home  of  the  Muses  and  of  the  liberal  arts  for 
all  the  world,  the  source  and  fountain  of  all  learning,  the 
mother  of  scholars,  the  nursery  of  knowledge.  This  Uni¬ 
versity  stands  on  four  solid  pillars,  that  is  to  say,  Theology, 
Medicine,  Law  and  the  Faculty  of  Arts.  The  first  three 
are  subject  to  a  dean  and  two  provosts,  while  the  Faculty 
of  Arts  elects  a  Rector  every  three  months;  and  all  the 
other  faculties  obey  this  Rector  as  their  king.  The  Uni¬ 
versity  is  divided  into  four  nations,  France,  Picardy,  Nor¬ 
mandy,  and  Germany  with  England.  It  contains  17 
churches  for  the  service  of  God,  14  monasteries,  4  hospitals, 
3  chapels,  and  30  public  colleges.  Besides  these  there  are 
also  30  private  colleges  where,  thanks  to  the  gifts  of  rich 
men,  students  are  provided  with  food  and  necessaries.” 
There  were,  so  it  was  said,  probably  more  than  doubling 
the  truth,  30,000  students.  It  was  a  world  in  itself. 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PARIS 


97 


The  part  of  the  city  on  the  rive  gauche,  the  Latin  quarter 
as  we  call  it,  was  girdled  in  by  a  wall  and  moat  which 
started  at  a  point  on  the  river  by  the  Tour  de  Nesle  (near 
the  modern  Institut )  and  ran  southerly,  excluding  the 
Abbey  of  St.  Germain,  but  swelling  out  sufficiently  to  em¬ 
brace  the  church  of  Sainte  Genevieve,  where  the  Pantheon 
now  stands,  and  bending  back  to  reach  the  Seine  again  at 
the  Place  de  Tournelle.  The  Rue  St.  Jacques,  entering 
the  city  from  the  faux  bourg  St.  Jacques  by  the  Porte  St. 
Jacques,  and  running  northward  straight  to  the  Petit  Pont, 
as  it  does  today,  cut  this  part  of  Paris  very  evenly  in  two, 
and  then  continued,  as  it  still  does,  across  the  Pont  Notre- 
Dame  and  on  into  la  Ville,  the  largest  section  of  the  city. 
Alberti  Vignate,  an  Italian  in  the  employ  of  Francis  I,  who 
visited  Paris  in  1517,  records  that  the  Pont  Notre-Dame 
is  flanked  on  either  side  with  houses  and  shops,  and  looks 
more  like  a  handsome  street  ( una  strada  bella)  than  a 
bridge,  and  that  the  Petit  Pont  is  occupied  by  goldsmiths’ 
shops  full  of  silverware  and  jewels,  and  is  still  handsomer 
(una  bellissima  strada). 

Paris,  nevertheless,  still  wore  its  mediaeval  aspect ; 
throughout  the  Latin  quarter  at  almost  every  street  cross¬ 
ing  chains  were  hung  and  a  portcullis,  ready  to  bar  all 
passage  at  a  moment’s  notice.  And  Paris  still  maintained 
some  of  its  mediaeval  customs,  for  Signor  Alberti  mentions 
by  the  way,  that  on  the  return  of  a  royal  party  from  high 
mass,  said  in  honor  of  nine  knights  newly  admitted  by  the 
King  to  the  Order  of  St.  Michael,  while  the  procession  was 
crossing  the  Pont  St.  Michel,  Monsieur  de  la  Pellisse,  who 
had  not  been  included  in  the  list,  stabbed  a  high  officer,  the 
Gran  Recever  de  Franza,  because  he  suspected  that  he  was 
the  cause  of  the  omission. 

Ignatius  arrived  in  Paris,  as  he  says  in  his  letter,  on 
February  2,  1528.  There  were  many  colleges  to  choose 
from,  but  various  considerations  restricted  his  choice.  He 
must  enter  a  college  open  to  the  French  Nation,  in  which 
academic  division  Spanish  students  and  others  from  south¬ 
ern  Europe  were  included.  And  among  colleges  open  to 
the  French  Nation  he  must  choose  one  where  he  could 


98 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


pursue  courses  of  gramatica,  that  is  Latin  grammar,  com¬ 
position,  literature  and  so  forth;  and  further  a  college  that 
made  special  arrangements  for  poor  students  also  was  desir¬ 
able.  As  the  College  de  Montaigu  fulfilled  all  these  re¬ 
quirements,  he  matriculated  there,  and  stayed  for  more 
than  a  year,  until  the  summer  of  1529. 

The  College  de  Montaigu  stood  on  the  hill  of  Sainte 
Genevieve,  not  far  from  the  city  wall,  about  midway  be¬ 
tween  the  Porte  St.  Jacques  and  the  Porte  St.  Marceau, 
on  a  site  a  little  to  the  left  as  you  face  the  Pantheon  today. 
It  was  more  than  two  hundred  years  old,  but  it  had  been 
reformed  once  or  twice.  Its  reputation  was  high.  Erasmus 
had  studied  there,  and  Calvin  also,  probably  leaving  just 
about  the  time  that  Loyola  came.  Erasmus  did  not  like  the 
place,  he  complains  of  bad  eggs  and  othei  discomforts,  but 
he  had  been  there  long  years  before  and  was  anticlerically 
inclined.  Rabelais  too  rails  at  the  college  “pour  Venorme 
cruaulte  et  villennie  que  je  y  ay  congneu.  Car  trop  mieulx 
sont  traictez  les  forcez  entre  les  Maures  et  Tartares,  les 
meurtriers  en  la  prison  criminelle,  voyre  certes  les  chiens  en 
vostre  maison,  que  ne  sont  les  malautruz  audict  colliege” ; 
but  Rabelais’  business  was  to  rail,  and  he,  too,  refers  to 
an  earlier  academic  regime.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  said 
that:  “This  College  enjoys  a  reputation  of  great  austerity 
and  discipline;  behaviour  there  is  as  good  as  in  church; 
for  that  reason,  whenever  a  boy  who  lives  in  Paris  is  way¬ 
ward  and  hard  to  manage,  he  is  packed  off  to  Montaigu 
and  brought  under  the  rod  of  humility  and  obedience.” 
Here  was  another  motive  for  Loyola’s  choice.  Discipline 
was  not  always  good  in  the  colleges  of  the  University.  For 
instance,  it  was  not  good  at  the  College  de  Sainte-Barbe, 
just  across  an  alley-way  from  Montaigu.  At  this 
very  time,  George  Buchanan,  the  famous  Scottish  scholar — 
Walter  Scott’s  favorite  Latin  poet — was  teaching  grammar 
and  Latin  literature  there  (1529-1531)  and  his  experience 
might  well  discourage  serious  pupils.  He  says: 

While  the  professor  is  puffing  over  his  teaching,  these 
lazy  boys  go  to  sleep,  or  into  daydreams  of  play  and  amuse- 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PARIS 


99 


ment.  One  boy  stays  away  and  has  bribed  his  neighbor 
to  answer  for  him;  another  has  lost  his  stockings;  a  third 
is  gazing  at  his  foot  that  peeps  out  from  a  hole  in  his  boot; 
a  fourth  pretends  to  be  ill;  a  fifth  is  writing  home.  No 
help  but  in  the  rod ;  then  sobbings  and  tear-stained  cheeks 
for  the  rest  of  the  day.  [These  were  younger  boys,  but 
Buchanan’s  experience  with  his  older  students  in  philosophy 
was  no  better.]  Now  a  troop  of  loafers  from  the  district 
across  the  river  tramps  in,  the  clatter  of  hobnail  boots  an¬ 
nounces  their  approach.  They  come  in  and  pay  as  much 
intelligent  attention  as  Marsyas  did,  listening  to  Apollo. 
They  are  ill-humored  because  they  did  not  notice  the  an¬ 
nouncement  of  the  course,  although  it  is  placarded  at  the 
street  corners,  and  they  are  offended  because  the  professor 
does  not  read  out  of  an  enormous  tome  scribbled  all  over 
with  marginal  comments.  So  they  all  get  up  and  with  an 
infernal  hubbub  walk  across  the  way  to  Montaigu,  where 
an  odor  of  soup  pervades. 

Here  the  professor  complains  of  his  students;  but  some¬ 
times  the  students  might  well  turn  the  tables.  Buchanan 
himself,  Dr.  Govea,  the  head-master  of  Sainte-Barbe,  and 
Juan  Pena,  also  an  eminent  scholar,  were  men  of  character 
and  high  respectability,  but  all  the  professors  were  not. 
Francis  Xavier  tells  that  during  his  first  year  at  Sainte- 
Barbe,  the  predecessor  of  Juan  Pena  was  a  debauchee  and 
led  his  students  to  the  depths  of  degradation,  and  that  he 
himself  sometimes  made  one  of  a  rioting  party  and  was 
only  saved  from  sin  by  fear  of  loathsome  consequences. 

According  to  the  rules  of  Montaigu  College,  studies  be¬ 
gan  before  daylight  and  continued  until  dark,  and  students, 
naturally,  were  expected  to  be  present.  At  first  Ignatius 
lodged  at  an  inn,  and  things  went  well;  but  unluckily  he 
entrusted  the  twenty-five  crowns,  which  he  received  on  his 
bill  of  exchange,  to  a  fellow  countryman  who  was  lodging 
there  also.  This  man  applied  the  money  to  his  own  uses 
and  left  Ignatius  with  none.  The  sequence  to  the  story  of 
this  embezzlement  belongs  to  the  following  year,  but  I  will 
relate  it  here.  The  embezzler  went  to  Rouen,  intending  to 


100 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


embark  for  Spain,  but  he  fell  ill.  Loyola  learned  of  his 
illness  by  a  letter — whether  written  by  him  to  Loyola  or  to 
another  I  cannot  make  out — and  decided  at  once  to  go  and 
nurse  him,  hoping  to  take  advantage  of  the  occasion  and 
persuade  the  sinner  to  forsake  the  world  and  devote  him¬ 
self  wholly  to  the  service  of  God.  Loyola  lived  in  a  region 
of  high,  mediaeval  imaginings;  he  fancied  that  if  he  were 
to  walk  all  the  way  to  Rouen,  barefoot,  without  food  or 
drink,  these  privations  would  prove  an  acceptable  sacrifice 
to  the  Lord,  and  bring  his  enterprise  to  a  happy  issue.  But 
he  was  also  apprehensive  lest  this  plan  might  be  pre¬ 
sumptuous,  as  if,  I  suppose,  he  were  tempting  God  to  per¬ 
form  a  miracle  through  him  as  intercessor.  He  prayed  over 
the  matter,  and  decided  to  carry  out  his  idea.  He  left  Paris 
before  dawn,  very  fearful,  but  on  reaching  the  town  of 
Argenteuil,  where  a  garment  of  Our  Lord  was  said  to  be, 
his  fear  passed  off,  he  felt  great  consolation,  and  also 
spiritual  power  and  joy,  and  went  on  his  way  across  the 
fields  shouting  and  conversing  with  God.  The  first  night 
he  lodged  in  a  hospital,  the  second  under  a  haymow,  and 
at  last,  without  tasting  food  or  drink,  reached  Rouen.  He 
comforted  the  sick  man,  helped  him  aboard  a  ship  bound 
for  Spain,  and  gave  him  letters  to  Calisto  and  his  other 
comrades  there. 

But  to  go  back  to  the  date  of  the  breach  of  trust.  Loyola 
was  left  without  a  penny,  he  could  no  longer  stay  at  the 
inn,  and  whatever  beds  Montaigu  College  may  have  had 
for  charity  students  had  undoubtedly  been  taken.  He  was 
obliged  to  seek  free  lodgings  elsewhere  and  went  to  the  hos¬ 
pital  of  St.  Jacques,  which  was  situated  across  the  river,  at 
the  other  end  of  Paris,  near  the  Porte  St.  Denis.  Now  the 
college  required  its  students  to  be  in  attendance  before 
sunrise  and  to  stay  till  after  dark,  and  the  rules  of  the  hos¬ 
pital  forbade  its  lodgers  to  leave  before  sunrise  and  obliged 
them  to  be  within  doors  by  sunset;  moreover,  having  no 
money,  Ignatius  was  obliged  to  beg  his  food.  Under  these 
circumstances  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  make  much  prog¬ 
ress  in  his  studies.  He  endeavored  to  obtain  the  job  of 
servitor  to  a  professor,  hoping  to  receive  the  privilege  of 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PARIS 


101 


attending  the  professor’s  lectures  in  return  for  his  services, 
but  such  positions  were  few  and  much  sought  after,  and 
he  had  no  luck.  At  the  suggestion  of  a  friend,  he  went  to 
Bruges  and  Antwerp,  and  begged  enough  money  of  some 
rich  Spanish  merchants  there  to  pay  his  expenses  for  the 
coming  year.  The  next  year  he  did  the  same.  On  one  of 
these  trips  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Luis  Vives.  The 
third  year  he  crossed  the  channel  and  went  to  London. 
After  that,  kind  merchants  in  Flanders  and  friends  in  Spain 
sent  him  enough  money  for  his  needs,  and  he  was  able  to 
devote  his  time  to  his  studies. 

In  October,  1529,  he  began  a  course  in  philosophy  at  the 
College  of  Sainte-Barbe,  which  was  much  frequented  by 
Portuguese  students.  Its  principal,  Jacques  de  Govea,  who 
came  of  an  able  and  distinguished  Portuguese  family,  had 
persuaded  the  King  of  Portugal  to  send  to  Sainte-Barbe 
all  the  Portuguese  students  maintained  in  Paris  at  the 
King’s  expense.  George  Buchanan  taught  Virgil  and  Latin 
in  general,  I  believe.  Strebee,  likewise  a  distinguished 
scholar,  held  the  chair  in  rhetoric,  Juan  Pena  taught 
philosophy,  and  Antoine  de  Govea,  a  nephew  of  the  prin¬ 
cipal,  and  early  famous  for  his  Latin  poetry,  also  occupied 
a  chair.  At  the  end  of  the  prescribed  period,  three  years 
and  a  half,  Ignatius  took  a  master’s  degree,  and  then 
entered  upon  a  course  of  theology,  but  never  completed  it, 
for  he  left  Paris  too  soon,  in  the  early  spring  of  1535.  Part 
of  the  lectures  he  attended  seem  to  have  been  given  in 
the  college  and  part  at  the  Dominican  convent  on  the  Rue 
St.  Jacques. 

In  comparison  with  his  troubles  at  Alcala  and  Sala¬ 
manca,  Loyola’s  sojourn  in  Paris  was  quiet  and  peaceful. 
This  was  probably  because  he  did  not  conduct  missions,  or 
preach  in  the  street.  He  was  too  busy  with  his  studies, 
and  Paris  was  not  a  good  place  for  an  itinerant  preacher. 
“Car  le  peuple  de  Paris  est  taut  sot ,  tant  badault ,  et  taut 
inepte  de  nature,  qu’un  basteleur,  un  porteur  de  rogatons, 
un  mulet  avecques  ses  cymbales,  un  vielleuz  au  milieu 
d’un  carre  four  assembler  a  plus  de  gens,  que  ne  feroit  un 
bon  prescheur  evangelicque.”  Twice  complaints  were  laid 


102 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


before  the  inquisitors,  but  both  times  proved  too  slight 
and  unsubstantial  to  warrant  any  action;  the  episodes,  in 
fact,  turned  out  to  the  ultimate  advantage  of  Loyola,  for 
the  Dominican  friar,  Dr.  Matthew  Ori,  who  at  the  time 
held  the  office  of  inquisitor  at  Paris,  conceived  a  high 
opinion  of  him,  and  stood  his  friend  at  a  time  of  need, 
years  afterwards,  in  Rome.  Besides,  the  book  of  Spiritual 
Exercises ,  which  as  usual  caught  the  attention  of  the 
inquisitor,  on  being  read  testified  eloquently  to  his  pure, 
religious,  and  orthodox  character  and  creed.  On  one  occa¬ 
sion,  however,  the  students  whom  he  was  drilling  in  the 
Spiritual  Exercises  got  into  trouble.  This  occurred  while 
he  was  still  at  Montaigu  College.  The  three  students  in 
question,  Pedro  de  Peralta,  Juan  de  Castro,  Spaniards,  and 
Amador,  a  Biscayan,  attended  Sainte-Barbe,  and  were, 
apparently,  young  gentlemen  of  more  or  less  social  con¬ 
sideration.  These  three,  carried  away  by  a  passion  for 
privations  and  ascetic  discipline,  left  the  college  and  went 
to  live  like  beggars  at  the  hospital  of  St.  Jacques,  where 
Loyola  had  formerly  lodged.  They  gave  away  everything 
they  possessed,  even  their  books,  and  begged  alms  in  the 
streets,  publicly.  Their  Spanish  fellow  students  at  Saint- 
Barbe  were  scandalized,  and,  finding  the  three  obdurate 
to  persuasion,  came  with  swords  and  staves,  dragged  them 
back  to  the  Latin  quarter,  and  made  them  swear  to  con¬ 
form  to  the  usual  ways  of  students  so  long  as  they  should 
remain  in  the  University.  The  Principal,  Dr.  Govea,  said 
that  the  first  time  Loyola  appeared  at  Sainte-Barbe,  on  lui 
donnerait  la  selle,  a  slang  phrase  which  meant  that  Loyola, 
in  the  presence  of  the  undergraduates,  would  run  the 
gantlet  between  two  rows  of  masters,  armed  with  rods. 
This  story,  as  usually  told,  represents  Dr.  Govea  suddenly 
overcome  by  Loyola’s  humility,  falling  on  his  knees,  beg¬ 
ging  pardon,  and  so  forth;  but  as  Loyola  in  his  Memoirs 
says  not  a  word  of  any  such  ending,  it  seems  to  me  an 
exaggeration,  an  embellishment  due  to  a  college  legend 
too  readily  accepted.  Neither  Father  Astrain  nor  Father 
Tacchi  Venturi  think  it  worth  repeating. 

During  his  stay  in  Paris  Loyola  learned  about  the  govern- 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PARIS 


103 


ment  and  art  of  managing  a  corporation  much  that  was  to 
be  of  great  service  to  him  years  later,  when  he  should  draw 
up  the  Constitution  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  The  rules  of 
the  College  de  Montaigu  were  largely  derived  from  the 
practices  of  the  Brothers  of  the  Common  Life,  and  so 
through  this  channel,  as  well  as  by  the  Life  of  Christ  by 
Ludolf  of  Saxony,  Loyola  is  connected  with  the  great 
German  mediaeval  mystical  tradition.  He  also  learned 
much  technical  matter  essential  to  the  teacher's  craft,  and 
further,  from  his  own  experience,  that  a  student  must 
attend  to  his  studies,  and  that  such  time  was  as  truly  spent 
in  the  service  of  God  as  if  he  were  in  church  on  his  knees, 
or  going  about  preaching  the  gospel,  or  comforting  unhappy 
women  in  their  distress.  But  the  chief  interest  attaching 
to  his  life  in  Paris  lies  outside  the  University  and  its 
courses. 


CHAPTER  XI 


LEFEVRE,  XAVIER  AND  LAINEZ 

In  Paris,  as  at  Salamanca  and  Alcala,  Loyola  held  fast 
to  one  great  purpose,  the  service  of  human  souls.  But, 
though  the  general  direction  he  should  take  was  plain,  the 
particular  route  was  much  less  so.  Two  considerations 
helped  mark  out  his  course.  On  his  memorable  journey 
to  Italy  he  had  discovered  that  the  world  was  far  larger 
and  far  less  readily  intelligible,  more  stiff-necked  and 
obdurate,  more  full  of  riddles  and  perplexities,  than  he  had 
imagined;  that  the  methods  used  by  St.  Francis  for  the 
winning  of  souls  were  outworn;  that  the  most  burning 
conviction  of  the  true  faith,  would  be  ineffectual  to  succour 
souls  that  were  wandering  in  the  ways  of  worldliness  and 
still  more  those  living  in  the  blindness  of  disbelief  or  heresy. 
If  he  would  become  a  light  to  guide,  he  must  be  able  to 
set  forth  the  truth  in  the  conventional  terms  of  philosophy 
and  theology;  he  must  be  able  to  combat  doubts  with  the 
authority  of  the  Fathers,  to  refute  error  with  reason,  to 
confront  presumptuous  speculations  founded  upon  the 
sands  of  individual  experience  by  arguments  built  upon 
the  rock  of  God’s  word. 

The  second  consideration  sprang,  I  think,  from  his  per¬ 
ception  of  his  power  over  other  men,  his  ability  to  supply 
their  needs  out  of  the  fullness  of  his  spirit,  and  to  impose 
his  conceptions  of  truth  and  duty  upon  them.  Why  should 
he  go  forth,  single-handed,  to  serve  human  souls,  if  he 
could  bid  others  leave  their  nets  and  become  fellow  fishers 
of  souls  with  him?  He  had  begun  to  gather  disciples  about 
him  at  Barcelona.  Three  had  gone  with  him  to  Alcala  and 
Salamanca,  but  they  did  not  have  the  means  to  follow  him 
to  Paris,  and  afterwards  went  their  several  ways.  In  Paris, 

104 


LEFEVRE,  XAVIER  AND  LAINEZ  105 

also,  his  teaching  had  stirred  three  impetuous  young  men 
to  sudden  heat — some  seeds  fell  upon  stony  places  where 
there  was  little  earth — but  their  over  ostentatious  piety, 
as  I  have  said,  shocked  academic  sensibilities,  and  they,  too, 
fell  away  and  did  not  return.  But  now,  during  his  residence 
at  Sainte-Barbe  he  won  over  to  his  hopes  six  disciples  who 
were  to  stay  with  him  and  constitute,  under  his  leadership, 
the  little  band  that,  in  their  deliberate  but  passionate  zeal 
for  the  saving  of  souls  and  for  the  greater  gloy  of  God, 
would  found  the  Company  of  Jesus.  Loyola’s  life,  however 
high  above  the  lives  of  ordinary  men,  lies  for  the  most  part 
on  a  level,  like  a  gaunt,  stark,  table-land;  but  above  this, 
like  peaks,  stand  out  three  great  happenings:  first,  his  con¬ 
version;  second,  his  bidding  young  masters  of  philosophy 
to  lay  down  their  private  ambitions  and  worldly  ends  and 
follow  him;  the  third  will  be  the  formal  founding  and 
establishment  of  the  Company  of  Jesus.  The  second  of 
these  is  my  immediate  subject.  Ignatius  entered  the  Col¬ 
lege  of  Sainte-Barbe  at  the  beginning  of  the  autumn 
term,  1529. .  There,  whether  by  chance  or  by  some  law  of 
spiritual  gravitation,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  two 
remarkable  young  men,  and  for  a  time  at  least  shared 
a  room  with  them.  Of  these  I  shall  introduce  first  Pierre 
Lefevre,  often  called  Favre,  who  is  considered  the  first 
disciple. 

Lefevre  was  born  in  a  mountain  village  near  Geneva,  in 
April,  1506.  His  parents  were  good,  religious  peasants  in 
moderate  circumstances,  unlettered,  and,  apparently,  both 
loving  and  reasonable;  the  son  was  still  more  religious 
minded  than  they.  He  was  extremely  sensitive,  and,  even 
at  the  age  of  seven,  subject  to  strong  devotional  impulses. 
He  was  expected  to  tread  the  path  of  ordinary  peasant  life, 
to  become  a  farmer  like  his  father,  and,  accordingly,  was 
sent  out  into  the  fields  to  tend  sheep,  an  occupation  to 
which  he  refers  in  after  life  as  “worldly”;  but  he  soon 
evinced  a  strong  desire  to  go  to  school.  There  was  some 
opposition  at  first,  but  his  tears  prevailed,  and  he  went. 
The  schoolmaster  was  as  pious  as  his  pupil;  he  seems  to 
have  seen  in  Latin  poems  so  many  Christian  allegories,  and 


106 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


to  have  expounded  Virgil,  Horace,  Seneca  and  Statius,  or 
whatever  poets  were  the  subject  of  his  teaching,  as  good 
Catholics  in  disguise.  At  any  rate  he  believed  that  the 
fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  and  instilled 
into  Pierre  a  religious  conception  of  the  meaning  of  life 
that  abode  with  him  always.  One  day  in  vacation,  when 
about  twelve  years  old,  Pierre  was  tending  sheep  all  alone 
in  a  pasture,  when  a  wave  of  religious  emotion  overwhelmed 
him  with  a  sudden  sense  of  obligation  to  dedicate  his  life 
to  God,  and  he  took  upon  himself  a  vow  of  perpetual 
chastity.  Perhaps  he  had  just  waked  to  a  consciousness  of 
those  attributes  of  the  flesh  which  monastic  tradition  stig¬ 
matizes  as  evil,  for  during  his  period  of  early  manhood  he 
was  sorely  troubled  by  them,  until  thanks  to  Loyola’s 
Spiritual  Exercises  he  shook  temptation  from  him.  At  any 
rate  his  vow,  the  influence  of  his  school,  or,  as  he  thought, 
his  love  of  literature,  saved  him  from  sin.  He  stayed  nine 
years  with  this  good  schoolmaster,  studying  hard;  and  then, 
at  the  age  of  nineteen,  in  the  year  1525,  went  to  Paris.  His 
memory,  however,  lingered  in  his  native  fields.  La  Fon¬ 
taine  du  Bienheureux  flows,  even  (it  is  said)  throughout 
the  hottest  period  of  summer,  from  the  spot  where  it  first 
gushed  forth  in  answer  to  the  young  shepherd’s  prayers  on 
behalf  of  his  thirsty  sheep,  and  a  chapel  has  been  erected 
thereabouts,  and  the  halt  and  lame  have  been  known  to 
recover  the  use  of  their  limbs  after  praying  there. 

At  Paris  Pierre  entered  the  College  de  Sainte-Barbe. 
Here  after  a  full  course  of  philosophy  he  took  a  degree  as 
Bachelor  of  Arts  and  a  further  degree  as  Licentiate.  Dur¬ 
ing  these  years  he  lived  in  close  intimacy  with  a  fellow  stu¬ 
dent,  Francis  Xavier,  who  entered  college  and  also  took  his 
degree  at  the  same  time  as  himself. 

In  the  autumn  of  1529  Loyola  matriculated  at  Sainte- 
Barbe,  and  the  three,  as  I  have  said,  shared  a  room 
together.  Loyola  was  just  beginning  the  course  in  philoso¬ 
phy,  and,  following  a  custom  of  the  University,  the  pro¬ 
fessor,  Juan  Pena,  assigned  Lefevre,  whose  scholarship  was 
excellent,  to  act  as  his  tutor.  The  relations  between  the 
tutor  of  twenty-three  and  the  pupil  of  thirty-four  became 


LEFEVRE,  XAVIER  AND  LAINEZ  107 

most  familiar  and  affectionate;  they  shared  one  purse,  ate 
together,  and  Loyola  repaid  the  coaching  in  philosophy  by 
giving  Lefevre  instruction  in  spiritual  matters  until  at  last, 
as  Lefevre  said  long  afterwards,  “we  became  one  in  hope,  in 
will,  and  in  our  steadfast  purpose  to  choose  the  life  which 
we  now  lead.” 

Poor  Pierre’s  conscience  was  a  troublesome  thing.  At 
times  he  was  tempted  by  pleasures  of  the  palate,  at  times 
tormented  by  carnal  desires,  and  again  fearful  lest  he  had 
omitted  some  fault  in  making  his  confessions.  He  was 
caught  and  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  fantastic  scruples — 
no  real  fault  was  ever  laid  to  his  charge — and  had  no  peace; 
he  wanted  to  go  off  to  the  desert  and  live  on  roots.  Loyola 
calmed  his  troubled  spirit.  He  bade  him  make  a  full  con¬ 
fession,  and  afterwards  to  confess  every  week  and  partake 
of  the  eucharist,  and  every  day  to  examine  his  conscience. 
As  Pierre  wished  for  farther  discipline,  Loyola  took  him 
through  the  Spiritual  Exercises,  proceeding  as  always  with 
deliberation  and  refusing  to  pass  on  to  the  next  lesson  until 
the  preceding  had  been  wholly  mastered.  By  mid-winter 
Pierre  had  reached  the  stage  of  severe  corporal  discipline. 
For  six  days  he  neither  ate  nor  drank  (a  penance  that  Igna¬ 
tius  had  found  most  helpful  in  his  own  case),  he  slept  in 
his  shirt  upon  logs  of  wood,  and  practised  meditation  in 
the  snow  out  in  the  court  yard.  Loyola,  though  he  had 
not  commanded  so  much  severity,  on  finding  him  there, 
said:  “I  am  sure  that  you  have  not  done  wrong  in  doing 
this,  on  the  contrary  you  have  acquired  much  merit ;  I  shall 
return  within  an  hour  and  tell  you  what  to  do,”  and  went 
on  to  a  neighboring  church  and  prayed  for  guidance.  His 
secret  wish  was  for  Pierre  to  fast  one  day  more,  making 
seven  days  in  all,  as  he  himself  had  done  at  Manresa;  but 
after  praying,  he  was  convinced  that  he  ought  not  to  coun¬ 
sel  such  rigor.  He  went  back,  made  a  fire,  and  bade  Pierre 
take  food. 

This  heroic  treatment  was  in  the  main  successful.  Still 
Pierre  was  worried  in  spirit  by  the  faults  of  others,  their 
suspicions  of  one  another,  their  unjust  judgments,  and 
by  scruples  lest  they,  or  he  himself,  might  have  committed 


108 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


any  number  of  sins,  undiscovered,  unconfessed  and  unfor¬ 
given.  Nevertheless  he  found  spiritual  consolation,  so  that 
he  was  afterwards  able  to  say  that  whenever  he  had  been 
in  distress,  anxiety,  uncertainty  or  fear,  he  had  received  the 
cure  at  God’s  hands  within  a  few  days.  And  yet,  lest  he 
should  slip  back  into  lukewarmness,  the  Lord  still  left 
him  some  nettles.  In  his  Memoirs  he  says: 

We  spent  four  years  interesting  ourselves  in  religious 
matters,  and  talking  them  over  with  other  students.  I 
made  daily  progress  in  the  spirit,  both  as  regards  myself 
and  in  my  relations  to  others,  although  I  was  proved  in 
the  fires  and  floods  of  temptation  (for  many  years,  even 
until  I  left  Paris)  and  also  in  vainglory.  But  in  these 
temptations  God  revealed  to  me  a  great  knowledge  of  my¬ 
self  and  of  my  faults,  permitting  me  to  see  very  deep  into 
them,  and,  as  a  cure  for  vainglory,  to  suffer  deeply.  And 
so,  of  His  grace,  He  gave  me  out  of  all  this  much  peace. 

One  of  his  friends,  Simon  Rodriguez,  says  of  him: 

There  was  a  rare  and  delightful  gentleness  and  grace  in 
his  behaviour  towards  others,  which  I  never  found  in  any¬ 
body  else.  In  some  way  or  other,  he  became  their  friend, 
gradually  crept  into  their  souls,  and  by  his  conduct  and 
his  slow  pleasant  words  kindled  in  them  all  a  violent  love 
of  God. 

I  think  that  Lefevre,  together  with  another  Frenchman, 
Jay,  was  the  tenderest  of  all  the  disciples.  He  himself 
says  in  his  Memorial ,  that  a  great  wave  of  compassion 
would  sweep  over  him,  and  he  would  pray  for  uPope, 
Emperor,  Francis  I,  Henry  VIII,  Luther,  The  Sultan  of 
Turkey,  Bucer  and  Melanchthon.  I  knew  that  many  people 
condemned  them,  and  for  that  very  reason  a  pious  feeling 
of  compassion  welled  up  within  me.”  He  seems,  so  far  as 
I  have  noticed,  to  have  been  the  only  one  to  keep  up  a 
love  of  the  classics.  The  fact  that  this  innocent,  true¬ 
hearted  man  (lately  beatified  by  the  Church)  was  at  once 


LEFEVRE,  XAVIER  AND  LAINEZ  109 

drawn  to  Loyola  and  remained  devoted  to  him  all  his  life, 
should  remind  us,  in  case  we  may  at  times  feel  Loyola’s 
character  overbearing,  bordering  upon  the  tyrannical,  and 
his  exactions  both  of  himself  and  others  stern  and  harsh, 
that  those  nearest  to  him  found  tenderness  within  as  well 
as  a  heroic  soul. 

Loyola’s  second  disciple,  Frangois  de  Jassu  et  de  Xavier, 
was  of  the  same  age  as  Lefevre,  but  from  a  different  social 
class.  An  official  document  declares  him  to  be  a  hijodalgo, 
a  gentleman  according  to  feudal  standards.  His  people 
dwelt  in  the  kingdom  of  Navarre,  which  at  that  time  lay 
on  both  sides  of  the  Pyrenees.  His  father’s  family  had 
lived  to  the  north  of  the  mountains,  his  mother’s  to  the 
south,  at  Xavier,  the  family  castle  and  estate,  where 
Francis  was  born,  some  twenty-five  miles  southeast  of  Pam¬ 
plona.  The  parents  resided  at  Xavier,  and  had  been  pros¬ 
perous  until  King  Ferdinand  invaded  and  annexed 
southern  Navarre  in  1512,  when  they,  as  partisans  of  the 
French  claimants,  were  dispossessed  of  a  portion,  at  least, 
of  their  estates  and  left  comparatively  poor.  Four  years 
later,  on  Ferdinand’s  death,  there  was  a  rising  on  behalf 
of  the  old  royal  house,  but  this  was  quickly  put  down,  and 
Cardinal  Ximenes,  at  that  time  regent  for  young  King 
Charles,  ordered  all  the  strongholds  throughout  Spanish 
Navarre  to  be  destroyed.  The  castle  of  Xavier  shared  the 
common  fate,  its  towers  and  fortifications  were  torn  down, 
leaving  it  defenseless,  almost  a  ruin.  As  the  duke  of 
Najera,  viceroy  of  Navarre,  executed  these  orders,  it  may 
be  that  Loyola  had  a  hand  in  the  demolition.  Besides  the 
injury  to  the  castle,  the  family  were  stripped  legally  and 
illegally  of  various  rights;  their  former  tenants,  finding 
them  outside  the  pale  of  royal  favor,  denied  rents  and 
feudal  dues;  drovers  taking  cattle  across  their  lands  re¬ 
fused  to  pay  toll  however  long  established;  and,  later  on, 
at  the  time  of  the  French  invasion,  neighboring  farmers 
occupied  their  fields,  and  lawless  peasants  cut  down  their 
timber.  For  these  latter  doings  there  was  some  excuse, 
since  Xavier’s  two  elder  brothers,  Miguel  and  Juan,  were 
among  the  inhabitants  favorable  to  the  old  royal  house 


110 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


who  took  arms  and  declared  for  the  former  allegiance.  So 
it  came  to  pass  that  while  Loyola,  in  the  Spanish  army,  was 
fighting  to  defend  the  citadel  at  Pamplona,  Xavier's 
brothers  were  serving  with  the  French  troops. 

The  insurrection,  if  it  may  be  so  called,  came  to  an  end 
in  1524;  the  two  fighting  brothers  made  their  peace  with 
the  Spanish  government,  and  returned  home  to  find  the 
family  affairs  in  pitiable  condition.  Francis,  in  the  mean¬ 
time,  had  stayed  with  his  mother,  and  had  acquired  enough 
schooling  to  prepare  himself  for  the  course  in  philosophy 
at  Sainte-Barbe,  and  to  Paris  he  went  in  time  for  the  Octo¬ 
ber  term  in  1525,  where  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  fall 
in  with  Pierre  Lefevre.  While  studying  philosophy  of  the 
schools  under  Juan  Pena,  he  also,  so  his  biographers  say, 
“was  applying  himself  with  great  fervor  to  a  better 
philosophy  of  a  different  kind — the  knowledge  of  self  and 
the  service  of  God."  This  better  philosophy  he  owed  at 
first  to  Pierre  Lefevre  and  only  afterwards  to  Loyola;  for 
it  seems  that  Xavier,  in  the  beginning  at  least,  was  less 
impressionable  than  Pierre  to  Loyola's  persuasions.  Per¬ 
haps  the  young  nobleman  entertained  more  pleasurable 
visions  of  a  worldly  life  than  the  young  peasant,  and  was 
less  disposed  to  renounce  them;  possibly  the  fact  that 
Loyola  had  served  under  the  Spanish  colors  in  Navarre, 
against  what  Xavier  regarded  as  the  patriotic  party,  may 
have  put  some  barrier  between  them.  And,  besides,  it 
seems  certain  that  the  new  ideas  on  religious  and  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  matters,  that  were  spreading  in  Paris,  at  first  possessed 
some  attraction  for  Xavier;  but  all  obstacles  and  causes 
of  separation,  whatever  they  may  have  been,  were  swept 
away  by  Loyola's  passionate  purpose,  and  Xavier  became 
his  second  disciple.  Xavier  is  the  prototype  of  modern 
Christian  missionaries,  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche,  like 
Bayard  or  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  as  renowned  for  his  modesty 
as  for  his  dauntless  courage;  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  to  the  clear  seeing  eyes  of  Loyola  there  were  other 
members  of  the  Company  as  good  as  he,  for  he  was  not 
the  first  choice  for  the  mission  to  the  heathen  of  India 
and  Japan. 


LEFEVRE,  XAVIER  AND  LAINEZ  111 

The  third  disciple  was  Diego  Lainez,  who  finally  suc¬ 
ceeded  Loyola  as  general  of  the  Company.  Lainez  was 
born  in  Almazan,  Castile,  in  1512,  and  was  therefore  six 
years  younger  than  the  two  earlier  disciples.  His  parents, 
grandparents  and  great-grandparents  were  Christians,  but 
it  seems  that  his  ancestors  of  the  generation  earlier  still 
were  Jews.  He  did  not  fall  into  the  respectable  category 
of  cristianos  viejos,  ancient  Christians,  pur  sang  as  the 
Spaniards  judged,  but  to  that  of  cristianos  nuevos ,  or  new 
Christians,  which  term  indicates  a  failure  of  four  genera¬ 
tions  of  Christian  ancestors.  Owing  to  this  taint  his  elec¬ 
tion  to  be  general  of  the  Company  gave  great  offense  to 
the  Spanish  grandees.  At  the  age  of  twenty  he  took  his 
degree  as  master  of  arts  in  the  University  of  Alcala,  where 
he  and  a  lad  from  Toledo,  two  or  three  years  younger  than 
himself,  Alfonso  Salmeron,  became  great  friends.  Both 
were  good  at  their  books  then,  and  in  after  life  became  very 
eminent  theologians.  One  eulogist  says:  “As  Ignatius 
Loyola  shone  among  his  first  companions,  like  the  sun 
among  the  stars,  by  the  light  of  holiness  and  wisdom,  so 
Xavier  and  Lefevre  glowed  with  the  glory  of  extraordinary 
piety,  and  Lainez  and  Salmeron  by  the  splendor  of  their 
sacred  learning.”  At  Alcala  these  two  heard  a  great  deal 
concerning  Loyola,  and  their  wish  to  see  him  encouraged 
them  in  their  purpose  of  going  to  Paris  to  pursue  their 
studies  in  theology.  By  chance  Ignatius  was  the  first  man 
Lainez  met  in  Paris.  The  two  new-comers  were  soon  in¬ 
itiated  in  the  Spiritual  Exercises. 

Lainez,  as  I  have  said,  became  a  great  theologian;  but 
history,  which  has  a  good  deal  to  say  of  his  prowess  at  the 
Council  of  Trent  and  of  his  work  in  after  years  when  he 
had  become  general  of  the  Society,  says  little  or  nothing 
concerning  his  personality,  beyond  an  enumeration  of  his 
virtues,  u vigilantia ,  prudentia,  charitas,  integritas,  forti- 
tudo”  and  so  forth.  His  numerous  letters  deal  with  the 
affairs  of  the  Society,  and  afford  no  self-revelation  beyond 
an  exceeding  humility.  He  returns  frequently  to  this 
theme:  “Delicta  juventutis  mece  et  ignorantias  meas  ne 
memineris ,  Domine.”  And  when  Pope  Paul  IV  was  con- 


112 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


sidering  his  elevation  to  the  cardinalate  he  wrote  to  his 
friends  to  save  him  from  such  an  honor,  “En  Dios  y  en 
mi  conscientia  io  me  siento  inhabit  para  lo  que  de  mi  se 
tratta  No  fair-minded  reader  will  doubt  that  these  early 
members  of  the  Society — unless  it  should  be  necessary  to 
make  an  exception  in  the  case  of  Rodriguez  or  of  Nicholas 
Bobadilla — strove  with  all  their  might  to  attain  the  virtue 
of  humility,  although  the  emphasis  which  they  lay  upon  it 
in  their  letters  may,  perhaps,  in  general  be  better  evidence 
of  their  strivings  than  of  their  attainments,  but  no  such 
doubts,  I  think,  can  hang  over  a  letter  I  am  about  to  quote 
written  by  Lainez  to  Loyola. 

In  order  to  appreciate  at  its  just  value  the  full  humility 
of  this  letter,  we  must  remember  that  before  this  date 
Lainez  had  received  the  virtual  offer  of  a  cardinal’s  hat, 
that  he  had  been  sent  to  represent  the  Pope’s  views  on 
theology  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  as  well  as  fulfilling  other 
important  offices,  and  that  his  reputation  stood  so  high  in 
the  Society  that  after  Loyola’s  death  he  was  elected  general 
in  his  stead.  His  transgressions  were  these:  Ignatius  had 
directed  a  certain  prior  at  Venice  to  send  back  one  of  the 
brethren  to  Rome,  and  Lainez  suggested  to  the  prior  to 
ask  Ignatius’s  leave  to  send  another  brother  in  place  of  him 
asked  for.  Second,  he  had  disagreed  with  Ignatius,  as  was 
evident  from  his  suggestions,  as  to  the  wisdom  of  taking 
the  brother  asked  for  from  Venice,  and  had  let  other  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  Society  know  that  he  disagreed.  Third,  he  had 
sent  a  student  at  the  University  of  Padua  on  to  Ignatius 
without  writing  ahead  to  give  him  the  requisite  preliminary 
information  concerning  the  student,  or  some  such  matter. 
To  us,  an  easy-going  people,  these  offenses  seem  trivial. 
To  Ignatius  they  seemed  “dissimulations  and  conceal¬ 
ments,”  and  indeed  they  were  breaches  of  the  vow  of  abso¬ 
lute  obedience  “con  ojos  cerrados ”  taken  to  the  general 
“as  though  he  were  Christ.”  But  I  must  not  close  the  inci¬ 
dent,  which  sheds  light  on  the  Spartan  discipline  of  the 
Society,  to  which  it  owed  its  strength  and  seemingly  miracu¬ 
lous  success,  without  adding  that  Ignatius  was  wholly 
mollified  by  the  letter. 


LEFEVRE,  XAVIER  AND  LAINEZ  113 


Florence,  November  15,  1552. 


To, 

The  very  Reverend  Father  in  Christ,  Ignatius 
Loyola,  General  of  the  Society  of  Jesus. 


JESUS  :  MARY 

• 

May  the  grace  and  peace  of  Our  Lord  be  with  us  all.  Amen. 

I  have  received  your  letter,  that  you  send  to  me  per¬ 
sonally,  and  I  have  read  it  over  many  times,  and  by  the 
Lord’s  grace  I  find  in  it,  to  my  pitiable  confusion,  nothing 
but  cause  to  praise  His  mercy,  and  to  increase  the  love  and 
respect  which  in  numerous  ways  I  owe  to  you.  I  beseech 
you  whenever  it  may  be  necessary  (would  it  might  not  be) 
without  regard  to  my  being  ill  of  a  fever  or  what  not,  to 
correct  me.  For,  by  the  grace  of  Our  Lord,  although  I  am 
grieved  that  there  should  be  occasion  and  that  I  do  not 
amend,  since  there  is  occasion,  I  accept  lovingly  all  that 
you  say  lovingly;  ...  In  answer  to  what  you  say,  after 
consideration  and  asking  God’s  favor,  as  you  bid  me,  I 
answer  to  your  first  point :  I  recognize  many  notable  faults, 
not  merely  because  you  find  them  (though  that,  I  think, 
would  be  enough  to  persuade  me,  for  it  is  easy  to  believe 
that  he  of  sharper  sight  sees  best)  but  because,  even  with 
my  poor  illumination  and  poor  sense  of  humility,  I  see  that 
such  things  have  set  a  bad  example  to  my  neighbor,  and 
may  have  hindered  the  better  service  of  our  Lord,  and 
certainly  have  pained  and  disturbed  you,  my  Superior, 
turning  your  policy  (which  you  were  guiding  with  loftier 
purpose)  towards  a  less  fitting  direction,  although  it  was 
my  duty,  especially  in  view  of  the  task  assigned  to  me,  not 
to  swerve,  but  to  take  the  direction  ordered  by  the  captain 
of  the  ship. 

As  to  my  choice  of  penitence,  Father — seeing  that  it  is 
now  about  twenty  years  since  I  set  my  mind  on  serving 
God  by  spreading  the  gospel,  and  that  though  I  have  had 
much  to  help  me  I  have  borne  scanty  fruit,  and  that  the 
end  of  life  is  not  far  off — during  these  last  days  I  have  come 


114 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


to  entertain  a  special  desire  to  die  to  myself  and  to  all  that 
belongs  to  me,  and  to  live  solely  for  God,  desiring  to  fulfil 
His  holy  will  and  please  Him.  Wherefore  I  have  thought 
to  myself,  that  if  I  were  treated  outwardly  as  I  deserve,  as 
foul  refuse,  I  should  find  that  that  would  help  me  to  live 
within  my  soul  in  the  company  of  God,  devoting  myself 
wholly  to  His  praise,  dead  to  the  world,  and  the  world  dead 
to  me. 

And  so,  when  your  letter  came,  asking  God  to  bless  me, 
I  made  my  choice  with  many  tears  (a  rare  matter  with  me), 
and  now,  shedding  a  few  more,  I  choose,  for  my  errors  and 
for  the  root  from  which  they  spring,  that  you  (and  in  so 
doing  I  unburden  my  conscience,  obeying  quietly  whatever 
you  lay  upon  me),  for  the  love  of  God,  will  take  from  me 
the  charge  over  others  that  I  now  have,  and  preaching 
and  study,  leaving  me  only  the  breviary,  and  bid  me  go 
begging  my  way  to  Rome,  and  there  work  in  the  kitchen, 
or  in  waiting  on  table,  or  in  the  garden,  or  anywhere;  or, 
if  I  were  of  no  use  in  that  way,  then  to  teach  the  lowest 
classes  at  school.  And  to  do  this  until  I  die,  heedless  of 
myself,  as  to  all  except  my  soul,  as  if  I  were  an  old  broom. 
Such  penitence  is  my  first  choice. 

As  to  the  second  head,  I  make  the  same  proposal,  limit¬ 
ing  the  time  to  one,  two,  or  three  years,  or  more,  as  you 
shall  determine. 

As  to  the  third  head  my  proposal  is,  to  go  without  supper 
during  Advent,  and  in  winter  undergo  a  discipline  in  my 
room,  to  be  deprived  of  my  charge,  and  hereafter,  when¬ 
ever  I  have  occasion  to  write  to  you,  first  to  commit  my¬ 
self  to  God,  and  think  what  I  am  to  write  about,  and  after 
writing  to  read  the  letter  over,  looking  carefully  to  see  that 
I  have  made  no  mistakes,  nor  written  in  a  way  to  vex  you, 
either  in  matter  or  manner,  but  rather  to  comfort  and  aid 
you.  For  I  recognize  that  that  is  my  duty,  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  you  act  in  that  way  towards  me;  and  be¬ 
sides  I  know  a  thousand  other  reasons.  And  I  mean  to 
take  this  same  care  not  to  offend  you  by  my  actions  or  by 
my  words,  whether  absent  or  present,  and  also  I  shall  try 
to  do  the  same  down  in  my  heart,  although  (thanks  to 


LEFEVRE,  XAVIER  AND  LAINEZ  115 

God)  I  have  had  little  difficulty  in  doing  that  all  my  life, 
except  perhaps  in  those  temptations  that  befell  me  in  Rome 
and  of  which  I  told  you.  And  since  you  say  some  persons 
have  suffered  in  edification  by  what  I  have  done,  I  suggest 
that  you  show  them  this  letter,  in  which  I  acknowledge 
truthfully  that  I  recognize  my  faults  and  that  I  am  very 
sorry,  and  mean  to  do  better;  and  I  beg  them  for  love  of 
God  to  forgive  me  and  to  help  me  with  their  prayers. 

One  of  these  three  courses  is  the  penitence  I  ask  for;  but 
what  will  please  me  better  than  any  of  these  is  whatever 
you  may  think  well  to  lay  upon  me,  since,  as  I  have  said, 
I  do  not  wish  to  do  my  will,  but  God’s  and  yours,  and  all 
I  beg  is  that  in  your  soul  before  God  you  shall  not  reject 
or  cast  out  my  soul,  but  help  and  comfort  it,  as  you  have 
done  for  so  many  years;  and  as  to  outward  behaviour  I 
care  not  if  you  pay  no  attention  to  me,  but  make  me  go 
straight  ahead  carrying  our  Lord’s  cross  in  all  humility, 
desiring  only  His  glory.  May  He  keep  you,  and  increase 
His  gifts  and  mercies  to  you,  as  we  all  wish  and  need. 

Your  unworthy  son  and  servant  in  Jesus  Christ, 

Lainez. 

And  to  give  another  touch  to  this  sketch  of  this  remark¬ 
able  man,  I  will  add  a  letter  that  he  wrote  to  his  mother, 
who  wished  to  see  him  when  his  father  died. 

To,  Elisabeth  Gomez  de  Leon. 

Trent,  August  10,  1546. 

May  the  grace  and  peace  of  Christ,  our  Lord,  and  the 
comfort  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  strength  of  the  Father 
be  always  in  our  hearts,  Amen. 

...  As  to  my  going  to  Spain,  you  have  already  learned 
from  my  letters  that  I  was  all  ready  to  do  so  several  months 
ago,  thinking  that  God  was  directing  me  there,  as  I  was 
to  be  sent  there  by  virtue  of  my  vow  of  obedience.  Since 
then,  you  have  seen  that  my  going  was  prevented  by  my 
coming  to  Trent,  where  the  Council  is  being  held,  and  I 
accepted  this  as  right,  in  a  belief  that  God  was  also  direct¬ 
ing  this,  and  from  not  knowing  in  these  matters  anything 


116 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


more  fitting.  And  now,  since  I  have  taken  the  vow  of 
obedience  to  God  (and  by  His  grace  I  desire  to  keep  it 
during  the  few  years  I  have  to  live),  I  can  do  nothing  more 
than  to  write  to  Rome  what  you  wish,  and  what  my  father 
washed  (God  keep  him).  So  I  shall  leave  it  for  my  Superior 
to  decide,  and  I  shall  deem  whatever  he  orders  best.  If  I 
shall  be  free  to  go,  the  task  will  be  a  pleasure;  if  my  going 
is  barred,  I  shall  never  cease  to  be  with  you  so  long  as  I 
live,  in  my  prayers  and  letters.  And  besides  I  am  of  so 
little  account,  that  I  am  sure  that  whoever  knows  me, 
would  care  little  to  see  me  in  bodily  presence;  and  so,  for 
love  of  our  God,  I  beseech  you,  too,  to  deem  that  good 
which  God  shall  ordain,  and  despise  the  help  that  I  would 
give  were  I  to  violate  my  calling  and  my  vow  of  obedience. 
And  be  sure  that  I  shall  truly  be  doing  my  duty  towards 
you,  if  I  do  it  towards  God,  who  desires  that  all  persons 
shall  put  their  hope  in  Him  only,  especially  widows,  of 
whom  St.  Paul  says,  I  Tim.  V.  5:  Let  the  widow  that  is 
desolate  hope  in  God  and  persevere  in  prayer  night  and 
day.  .  .  . 

He  that  desires  your  greatest  good, 


Lainez. 


CHAPTER  XII 


SALMERON,  RODRIGUEZ  AND  BOBADILLA 

The  fourth  disciple  was  Alfonso  Salmeron,  of  Toledo. 
He  was  born  in  September,  1515,  and  in  due  course  went 
up  to  the  University  of  Alcala.  He  studied  Latin,  Greek 
and  philosophy,  and  then  went  with  Lainez  on  to  Paris 
in  order  to  take  a  course  in  theology.  As  with  the  other 
early  Fathers,  little  or  nothing  is  told  of  his  youth  or  of  his 
personal  traits.  In  after  life  his  most  noted  service  was 
the  part  he  played  at  the  Council  of  Trent.  His  learning 
was  unquestionable,  and  he  seems  to  have  been  somewhat 
of  an  orator;  it  is  said  that  his  wits  were  keen,  his  voice 
agreeable,  •  his  gestures  dignified,  and  his  command  of 
language  copious.  With  reference  to  the  Council  of  Trent, 
Polanco  says: 

When  Fathers  Lainez  and  Salmeron,  at  the  request  of 
the  papal  Legates,  delivered  their  opinions  before  the  as¬ 
sembled  theologians  [the  subject  under  discussion  was 
Justification]  they  did  so  well  (by  God’s  help)  that  they 
found  extraordinary  favor  with  the  Legates  and  all  the  pre¬ 
lates  and  theologians.  The  Spanish  bishops,  in  particular, 
who  had  previously  looked  askance  at  them,  changed  their 
minds  and  could  not  see  enough  of  them. 


For  the  benefit  of  any  reader  more  interested  in  poetry 
than  theology,  I  had  better  add  that  when  Vittoria  Colonna 
besought  Ignatius  to  send  one  of  the  fathers  to  Ferrara, 
where  she  could  hear  him  preach,  Salmeron  was  chosen  to 
go,  and  preached  to  her  great  satisfaction.  These  were 
peaceful  undertakings,  but  Salmeron’s  life  did  not  lack  its 

117 


118 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


share  of  adventure.  He  and  Father  Broet  were  sent  on  a 
mad  expedition  to  Ireland,  where  they  ran  the  risk  of  sum¬ 
mary  execution,  in  the  days  when  Henry  VIII  was  raging 
against  the  Pope  and  his  emissaries.  I  shall  return  to  this 
later. 

Salmeron’s  letters,  like  those  of  the  others,  confine  them¬ 
selves  strictly  to  business,  but  the  language  of  the  ballot 
he  cast  in  favor  of  Ignatius,  April  4,  1541,  when  voting 
for  the  first  general,  reveals  the  tenderer  side  of  these 
austere  Christians.  In  every  one  of  the  first  Fathers,  I 
believe,  may  be  found  touches  of  early  Franciscan  love 
and  simplicity,  but  they  must  be  sought  diligently,  turn¬ 
ing  over  many  leaves*,  as  one  searches  for  the  first  May 
flowers  in  March. 

I,  Alfonso  Salmeron,  a  most  unworthy  member  of  the 
Society,  after  praying  to  God  and  reflecting  maturely  over 
the  matter  to  the  best  of  my  judgment,  choose  and  pro¬ 
claim  as  General  and  Superior  for  myself  and  for  the  whole 
Society,  Don  Ignatius  Loyola,  who  according  to  the  wisdom 
given  to  him  of  God  begot  us  in  Christ  and  fed  his  little 
ones  on  milk,  but  now  that  we  are  grown  up  in  Christ  he 
feeds  us  with  the  strong  meat  of  obedience,  and  guides  us 
through  the  rich  pastures  of  Paradise  to  the  fountain  of 
eternal  life,  so  that  when  he  shall  deliver  his  little  flock 
to  Jesus  Christ,  that  great  Shepherd  of  the  sheep,  we  may 
truthfully  say,  “We  are  the  people  of  his  pasture  and  the 
sheep  of  his  hand/’  and  he,  verily,  may  say,  “Lord,  of  them 
which  thou  gavest  me,  have  I  lost  none.”  May  Jesus  him¬ 
self,  the  good  Shepherd,  deign  to  grant  this  unto  us. 
Amen.  This  is  my  vote. 

I  also  quote  a  minute  of  thanksgiving  entered  in  a  letter 
to  Loyola  after  recovery  from  an  illness  while  at  the  Coun¬ 
cil  of  Trent: 

May  the  Lord  be  always  blessed  and  praised  for  the  great 
mercies  He  has  deigned  to  confer  upon  me  in  this  illness,  in 
that,  besides  having  favored  me  with  the  Sacraments  of  the 


SALMERON,  RODRIGUEZ  AND  BOBADILLA  119 

Church  and  such  goodly  company  [Lainez?],  He  has  com¬ 
forted  me  in  the  extremity  to  which  I  was  come,  bringing 
my  will,  to  my  great  content  and  joy,  into  conformity  with 
His  holy  will,  and  giving  me  a  keen  realization  of  my  sins 
and  shortcomings,  and  a  lively  hope  in  the  greatness  of  His 
compassion  and  mercy,  by  which  He  has  been  pleased,  con¬ 
trary  to  the  expectations  of  the  physicians  and  all — to  re¬ 
store  me  to  life,  if  I  may  rightly  use  this  expression.  May 
it  please  His  Divine  Majesty  that  my  life  may  be  to  His 
greater  service,  glory  and  praise. 

The  next  disciple  in  order  was  Simon  Rodriguez,  a  Portu¬ 
guese.  At  that  time,  I  believe,  the  University  of  Coimbra 
either  did  not  teach  theology  or  taught  it  but  indifferently 
well,  and  the  King  of  Portugal,  as  I  have  said,  maintained  a 
number  of  deserving  students  at  the  University  of  Paris, 
paying  their  expenses  out  of  his  royal  purse.  Dr.  Govea, 
the  principal  of  Sainte  Barbe,  had  seen  to  it  that  his  young 
fellow  countrymen  should  go  to  his  college  ;  and  so,  Rodri¬ 
guez,  who  had  won  this  Prix  de  Paris,  went  there,  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Loyola,  and  touched  to  the  heart  by  the 
“immenso  hominum  salutis  desiderio”  with  which  Loyola 
was  on  fire,  he  joined  the  little  band  that  cared  above  all 
things  else  to  serve  their  God.  Of  all  the  first  Fathers 
Rodriguez,  perhaps,  was  the  least  successful  in  attaining  to 
the  high  ideal  that  Ignatius  set  before  his  disciples.  Vigor¬ 
ous  qualities  he  must  have  possessed  for  when  the  King  of 
Portugal  asked  that  some  Fathers  should  be  sent  to  India, 
he  was  selected  to  go  with  Francis  Xavier;  but  on  his  way 
through  Portugal,  waiting  for  the  final  preparations  of  his 
voyage,  he  made  himself  so  acceptable  to  everybody  that 
Ignatius,  at  the  King’s  request,  decided  to  leave  him  there 
at  the  head  of  the  Jesuit  mission.  So  he  stayed;  but  the 
decision  proved  unfortunate,  for  he  brought  the  affairs  of 
the  Society  into  much  confusion.  He  was  of  a  volatile  dis¬ 
position,  and  when  he  wanted  to  do  a  thing,  he  was  for 
doing  it  at  once  without  waiting  for  orders.  He  was  im¬ 
pulsive  and  imprudent,  at  least  it  appeared  so  to  fellow 
members  of  the  Order.  He  took  too  lively  an  interest  in  the 


120 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


royal  court  and  its  concerns;  he  lowered  the  standard  of 
austerity  in  the  matter  of  physical  comfort,  he  failed  some¬ 
times  in  brotherly  love,  he  neglected  discipline,  permitting 
superior  and  subaltern  to  be  on  even  footing;  he  was  lax  in 
observing,  both  for  himself  and  those  in  authority  under 
him,  the  vow  of  obedience,  the  prime  duty  of  all  Jesuits; 
and  he  suffered  discussions  and  denials  of  his  prudence  right 
under  his  nose.  But  at  other  times  he  carried  his  self- 
conceit  to  such  a  point  that  he  spoke  disparagingly  of 
Ignatius,  and  when  the  latter  disapproved  of  what  he  had 
done  or  proposed  to  do,  murmured  that  the  general  had 
been  governed  by  motives  of  ambition.  To  his  more  obe¬ 
dient  comrades  he  appeared  to  be  under  the  dominion  of 
some  spirit  not  of  God,  whether  his  own  or  of  the  devil,  they 
could  not  tell.  But  these  defects  which  seem  to  have  pro¬ 
ceeded  from  instability  of  purpose,  rather  than  from  any 
deeper  fault,  belong  to  a  time  twenty-five  years  later  than 
these  undergraduate  days  and  did  not  reveal  themselves 
then;  on  the  contrary,  when  the  little  band  of  disciples  left 
Paris  to  join  Ignatius  in  Italy,  Rodriguez  mocked  the  efforts 
of  his  worldly  friends,  who  did  all  they  could  to  persuade 
him  to  turn  back,  and  stuck  to  his  purpose.  In  his  old  age 
he  wrote  a  treatise  On  the  Origin  and  Progress  oj  the  Com¬ 
pany .  This  and  his  letters  show  him  to  have  possessed  a 
faithful  and  loving  heart,  but  no  very  great  intelligence. 
At  any  rate,  he  was  not  in  the  least  intellectual. 

The  next  among  these  fishers  of  men’s  souls  is  Nicholas 
Alfonso,  usually  called  Bobadilla  from  the  name  of  the  little 
town  in  Old  Castile  where  he  was  born,  about  the  year  1507. 
He  says  that  his  parents  were  very  devout  Christians,  who 
went  regularly  to  mass  and  brought  him  up  in  the  fear  of 
the  Lord.  He  prepared  for  college  at  Valladolid,  and  went 
to  the  University  of  Alcala,  where  he  took  a  degree  in  the 
arts  and  philosophy.  He  then  returned  to  Valladolid  to  at¬ 
tend  lectures  at  the  University  there  upon  Thomas  Aquinas, 
and  supported  himself  by  teaching  logic.  His  ambition  was 
to  study  Greek,  Latin  and  Hebrew  and  take  more  advanced 
courses  in  literature;  in  order  to  do  this  he  went  to  Paris, 
where  he  matriculated  in  the  College  of  Calviac,  near  the 


SALMERON,  RODRIGUEZ  AND  BOBADILLA  121 

Sorbonne.  His  purse  was  light,  empty  probably,  and  having 
got  wind  of  Loyola’s  reputation  for  helping  poor  students  to 
a  means  of  livelihood,  he  sought  him  out,  received  aid,  and 
like  other  serious  young  men  who  came  within  Loyola’s 
magnetic  attraction,  felt  himself  drawn  to  a  life  of  self¬ 
consecration.  Under  Loyola’s  exhortations  he  abandoned 
the  learned  languages  in  favor  of  a  course  in  dogmatic  the¬ 
ology;  this  he  was  the  more  ready  to  do  because  he  found 
Paris  infected  by  the  Lutheran  heresy,  and  report  said  that 
the  humanists  who  cultivated  Greek  literature  were  chief 
among  those  who  inclined  to  the  new  ideas.  In  the  jargon 
of  undergraduate  Latin  he  says  qui  graecizabant  lutheran- 
izabant. 

Bobadilla  in  after  life  did  much  that  called  forth  great 
praise.  The  famous  English  Cardinal,  Reginald  Pole, 
lauded  him  for  the  goodly  fruits  of  his  labors  in  Viterbo, 
“for  his  preaching,  his  teaching  and  the  praiseworthy  ex¬ 
ample  of  his  life.”  Others  speak  of  his  vita  innocentissima, 
of  his  scientia,  bonitas,  sinceritas  et  erga  Deum  fervor,  and 
call  him  dottissimo  e  simplicissimo .  But  in  addition  to 
diligence,  perseverance  and  many  other  virtues,  Bobadilla 
had  his  faults;  he  lacked  tact,  talked  over-freely,  gave  loose 
rein  to  his  impatience  when  he  should  have  curbed  it,  and 
was  too  ready  to  exhibit  complacency  at  his  successes  and 
his  elevation  in  the  world.  Some  of  these  faults  showed 
themselves  in  Germany.  The  Emperor  had  issued  a  decree 
known  as  the  Augsburg  Interim  which  from  an  orthodox 
point  of  view  was  far  too  favorable  to  the  Protestants;  for 
instance,  it  granted  the  priests  permission  to  marry,  and  to 
the  laity  communion  in  both  kinds.  Bobadilla  lost  his 
temper,  and  in  high  indignation,  drew  up  and  circulated 
memorials  against  it.  Partisans  of  the  decree,  in  their  turn, 
were  angry  with  Bobadilla,  and  induced  the  Emperor  to 
issue  an  order  directing  him  to  leave  Germany.  This  was  a 
great  vexation  to  Loyola,  always  fully  alive  to  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  securing  the  good  will  of  persons  in  high  place.  A 
letter  from  Father  Salmeron,  then  at  the  Council  of  Trent, 
who  was  much  troubled  in  spirit  by  Bobadilla’s  conduct 
even  before  this,  also  complains  of  him: 


122 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


What  I  am  now  going  to  say  is  not  for  the  sake  of  causing 
you  [Loyola]  anxiety  nor  for  complaining  of  my  neighbor, 
but  to  satisfy  our  consciences,  and  in  order  that  you  may, 
by  prayer  or  any  other  way  that  you  see  fit,  apply  the 
remedy  in  Bobadilla’s  case.  It  is  perfectly  true,  as  Magister 
Claude  Jay  and  others  say,  that  he  serves  the  Lord  in  some 
ways  and  causes  some  souls  to  bear  fruit,  nevertheless  there 
are  so  many  things  in  the  other  balance  that  they  should  be 
looked  to.  These  are,  first :  he  puts  his  fingers  into  decisions 
as  to  where  he  shall  be  sent,  as  for  instance  not  long  ago  he 
tried  to  be  recalled  from  Germany,  and  now  he  does  the 
same  in  order  to  come  to  Trent,  according  to  what  Cardinal 
Pole  said  to  Magister  Jay.  And  also  in  Germany  he  inter¬ 
fered  in  order  to  be  sent  from  one  place  to  another,  as  for 
example  to  stay  at  Cologne,  and  then  to  go  to  Passau.  So, 
unless  you  take  steps,  it  may  well  be  that  he  will  come  here. 
Second:  it  is  said  that  he  talks  a  great  deal  too  much,  inter¬ 
rupts  other  people,  and  discourses  at  great  length  on  the 
policies  of  princes  and  kingdoms,  and  gets  into  great  dis¬ 
putes,  and  both  gives  offence  and  excites  ridicule.  At 
times,  too,  he  quarrels;  as  he  did  once  with  the  Papal 
Nuncios,  and  provoked  them  to  speak  sharply  to  him,  and 
to  say  not  very  nice  things  of  him  behind  his  back.  Third: 
in  writing  he  oversteps  all  bounds,  as  in  writing  letters  to 
royalties  and  cardinals  without  taking  any  advice, — please 
God  that  he  doesn’t  write  foolishness.  Among  other  letters 
he  wrote  one  to  Dr.  Scott  full  of  bad  manners  and  insults. 
Luckily  it  fell  into  Magister  Jay’s  hands  and  he  did  not 
deliver  it.  Again  he  oversteps  bounds,  in  writing  pamphlets 
and  presenting  them  to  princes,  and  one  he  had  translated 
into  German  in  order  to  give  it  to  the  Queen  of  Austria. 
He  also  made  Canisio  put  another  into  proper  style,  wasting 
his  time,  and  we  are  afraid  that  he  will  print  it.  And  he 
proposes  to  expound  one  of  his  books  in  Ratisbon,  and  to 
invite  princes,  bishops,  and  ambassadors  to  hear  him,  and 
he  speaks  in  his  letters  as  if  they  came  regularly  to  his  lec¬ 
tures,  whereas  they  could  not  have  gone  but  once,  for  some¬ 
body  wrote  to  Magister  Jay,  “Magister  Bobadilla  has  begun 
to  lecture  on  some  book  or  other,  but  I  do  not  think  he  will 


SALMERON,  RODRIGUEZ  AND  BOBADILLA  123 

have  any  audience.”  Fourth :  his  behaviour  is  so  free  that 
he  often  plays  chess  with  laymen,  for  instance  with  the  Ve¬ 
netian  ambassador.  Besides  some  one  here  said  to  Magister 
Jay,  that  he  once  got  heated  in  arguing  and  drank  so  much 
with  some  other  men  that  he  could  hardly  walk  home ;  how¬ 
ever,  Magister  Jay  says  he  has  never  seen  any  such  fault  in 
him,  but  thinks  that  his  gestures  and  gesticulations  in  argu¬ 
ment  make  people  think  that  he  has  drunk  too  much,  al¬ 
though  he  has  not. 

When  we  read  that  his  freedom  of  behaviour  carried  him 
to  a  game  of  chess,  we  may  rest  assured  that  his  lively 
southern  temperament  and  lack  of  tact  and  self-control, — 
grievous  faults  according  to  the  stern  discipline  of  the 
Society — were  the  worst  that  can  be  said  of  him.  After 
Loyola’s  death,  Bobadilla  now  and  again  became  conten¬ 
tious,  he  criticised  the  constitution  of  the  Society,  and  de¬ 
nied  the  validity  of  Lainez’s  election  as  Vicar.  But,  on  the 
other-hand,  the  generosity  of  his  nature  showed  itself  later, 
when,  after  Lainez  had  been  elected  general,  the  question 
arose  whether  it  would  be  better  to  limit  his  term  of  office 
to  a  period  of  three  years,  as  Pope  Paul  IV  had  wished,  or 
to  continue  it  for  life  as  the  Constitution  provided.  He 
wrote  to  Lainez  as  follows: 

Very  Reverend  Father  in  Christ.  Gratia  et  pax  Christi 
Domini  sit  semper  vobiscum.  Amen.  As  to  the  office  of 
General,  my  vote  is  that  it  shall  always  be  for  life,  as  the 
Constitution  says;  and  may  it  be  yours  solidly  enough  to 
last  for  a  hundred  years,  and  if  you  should  die  but  were 
immediately  to  rise  again  from  the  dead,  I  vote  that  you  be 
confirmed  in  it  until  Judgment  day,  and  I  beseech  you  to 
accept  it  for  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ. 

That  neither  Bobadilla  nor  Rodriguez  was  a  weakling  is 
sufficiently  proved  by  the  fact  that  they  were  the  first  two 
brethren  chosen  to  go  upon  the  mission  to  India.  Bobadilla 
was  ill  and  could  not  go,  and  Rodriguez  was  detained  in 
Portugal. 


124 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Ignatius  also  tried  to  attach  to  himself  a  young  Span¬ 
iard,  Jerome  Nadal,  who  had  been  at  the  university  at 
Alcala  while  he  was  there.  The  attempt  was  unsuccessful 
and  Nadal  did  not  join  till  years  later,  but  as  the  brief  record 
in  Nadars  autobiography  sheds  a  little  light  on  Loyola’s 
method,  I  quote  it: 

He  took  me  to  the  little  old  church  that  is  near  the  gate 
of  St.  Jacques,  and  by  the  baptismal  font  read  me  a  long 
letter  that  he  had  written  to  some  nephew  of  his  in  Spain, 
of  which  the  purport  was  to  win  him  from  the  world  to  a 
life  of  perfection.  The  Devil  perceived  very  well  the  effi¬ 
cacy  of  the  letter  and  of  its  writer,  and  dragged  me  forcibly 
from  the  spiritual  power  that  sought  me.  So,  as  we  went 
out  and  were  standing  within  the  space  in  front  of  the 
church  door,  I  said  to  Ignatius  (I  had  the  New  Testament 
in  my  hands),  “I  propose  to  follow  this  book;  I  don’t  know 
in  what  direction  you  are  headed ;  please  do  not  do  any  more 
in  this  matter  and  don’t  concern  yourself  about  me.” 


CHAPTER  XIII 


THE  “SPIRITUAL  EXERCISES” 

It  is  now  time  to  speak  of  Loyola’s  set  of  rules  and  coun¬ 
sels  for  religious  practices,  the  Spiritual  Exercises,  for  they 
were  the  chief  means  by  which  he  imposed  his  vision  and  his 
will  upon  the  young  disciples.  This  book  is  the  fruit  of  his 
own  needs  and  experiences;  he  entertained  an  unshakeable 
assurance  that  what  had  proved  of  great  succour  and  conso¬ 
lation  to  him,  a  tonic  and  source  of  strength,  would  do  as 
much  for  other  sincere  souls,  and  further,  that  there  could 
be  no  better  test  of  a  man’s  fitness  for  a  religious  life  than 
the  manner  in  which  he  was  affected  by  these  exercises.  He 
wrote  the  main  part  of  the  treatise  at  Manresa,  in  the  first 
flood  of  religious  emotion,  but  undoubtedly  made  additions 
and  alterations  at  later  times.  The  concluding  chapter, 
which  contains  rules  for  rejecting  private  judgments  and 
accepting  the  guidance  of  the  Church,  was  evidently  added 
later,  probably  at  Alcala,  after  his  evangelical  mission  had"* 
attracted  the  notice  of  the  Inquisition,  or  perhaps  in  Paris; 
and  one  particular  clause — “to  attain  the  truth  in  all  things, 
we  ought  always  to  hold  that  we  believe  what  seems  to  us 
white  to  be  black,  if  the  Hierarchical  Church  so  defines  it” 
— belongs,  I  think,  to  the  period  of  his  residence  in  Rome, 
after  the  Society  had  been  stationed  in  the  van  of  the 
phalanx  that  upheld  the  doctrine  of  blind  obedience  to  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff.  I  do  not  for  a  moment  suggest  that 
Ignatius  expressed  in  this  last  chapter  more  than  he  fully 
believed ;  I  merely  mean  that  he  gave  clear  expression  to  his 
belief,  when  it  became  prudent  perhaps  advantageous,  to 
do  so. 

It  seems  likely  that  at  the  monastery  of  Montserrat  he  had 
become  acquainted  with  a  book  of  spiritual  guidance  called 

125 


126 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


the  Ejercitatorio  Espiritual,  written  by  a  former  abbot  of 
the  place,  Francisco  Garcia  de  Cisneros;  and  various  un¬ 
friendly  controversalists  have  seized  upon  this  likelihood  to 
deny  originality  to  Loyola’s  book.  It  may  well  be  that 
Ignatius  got  the  idea  of  his  book  from  this  precedent,  but 
if  so,  the  starting  point  counted  for  little  or  nothing  with 
him ;  he  was  completely  absorbed  by  his  own  emotions,  and 
swept  along  by  a  passionate  desire  to  render  the  lessons  of 
his  experience  valuable  to  others.  As  both  books  treat  of 
the  same  general  subject  there  is  of  necessity  some  slight 
resemblance  between  them,  but  the  plans  and  the  purposes 
are  different,  and  the  triumphant  vindication  of  Loyola’s 
originality  lies  in  the  fact  that  whereas  only  a  few  scholars 
know  of  Cisneros’  book,  the  whole  Roman  Catholic  world 
is  as  familiar  with  Loyola’s  Spiritual  Exercises /as  Protes¬ 
tant  England,  for  instance,  is  with  Pilqrirn’s  Progress . 
Loyola,  also,  no  doubt  derived  some  of  his  ideas  from  other 
sources,  for  he  was  neither  so  foolish  nor  so  arrogant  as  to 
reject  approved  ideas  that  fitted  in  his  schemes,  merely  be¬ 
cause  in  some  form  or  another  they  had  been  used  before. 
In  this  case,  as  in  others  to  which  I  shall  refer  hereafter, 
he  took  his  raw  materials  as  chance  or  Providence  put  them 
within  reach,  transformed  them  in  the  fiery  furnace  of  his 
passionate  purpose  to  serve  God,  perfectly  oblivious  of  what 
he  had  taken.  He  would  have  been  bewildered  by  any 
question  of  originality;  how  could  that  matter?  He  was 
not  thinking  of  himself,  or  of  his  own  reputation,  but  of  the 
salvation  of  souls  and  the  greater  glory  of  God. 

It  is  necessary,  at  the  outset,  to  say,  that  the  book  is  not 
meant  to  be  put  in  the  hands  of  a  novice.  It  is  a  book  of 
instruction  for  a  spiritual  director,  and  contains  many  sug¬ 
gestions  as  to  the  method  of  imparting  the  contents  and 
imposing  the  discipline.  An  experienced  director  would  sup¬ 
plement  the  text  by  oral  explanations  and  amplifications. 
For  this  reason,  in  part  at  least,  the  book  is  stark  and  bare 
from  beginning  to  end.  All  superfluity,  emotional  and  in¬ 
tellectual,  is  stripped  off,  very  much  as  nurses  prepare  the 
operating  room  of  a  hospital.  The  counsels  are  free  from 
sentimental  weakness;  they  may  move  the  novice  to  re- 


THE  “SPIRITUAL  EXERCISES” 


127 


pentance,  to  a  passionate  aspiration  for  an  ideal,  to  tears 
and  contortions,  but  not  by  tenderness.  It  is -essentially  a 
masculine  book,  and  needs  the  kindly  exposition  of  a 
Fenelon,  or  a  Frangois  de  Sales,  to  soften  its  severity.  And, 
we  must  remember  that  for  Loyola,  as  well  as  for  his  con¬ 
temporaries,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  and  for  many  since  his 
time,  the  mediaeval  dogmas  of  Christian  faith  existed  in 
their  naked  simplicity.  By  Adam’s  sin  all  his  descendants 
were  doomed  to  eternal  damnation;  but  “the  Three  Divine 
Persons  .  .  .  seeing  all  men  descending  into  Hell,  deter¬ 
mined,  in  Their  eternity,  that  the  Second  Person  should  be¬ 
come  man  to  save  the  human  race.”  Christ’s  sacrifice 
redeemed  Adam’s  fall.  Nevertheless,  the  Atonement  is  not 
sufficient  for  human  salvation :  it  is  still  necessary  for  man 
to  be  baptized,  to  believe  a  series  of  dogmas,  and  to  abstain, 
or  at  least  to  be  absolved,  from  mortal  sin.  The  brief  span 
of  a  few  years  determines  his  everlasting  weal  or  woe:  qui 
bona  egerunt ,  ibunt  in  vitam  ceternam,  qui  vero  mala,  in 
ignern  externum.  Life  is  a  sort  of  grim  game  in  which  the 
players  run  from  bourne  to  bourne  across  the  field  of  time, 
while  two  orders  of  superhuman  beings  interfere;  one  to 
help  the  players  safely  across,  the  other,  furnished  with  all 
sorts  of  tricks  and  devices, — wine,  women,  offices,  honors — 
strive  to  intercept  and  catch  them.  Under  such  an  aspect 
life  is  far  more  dramatic  and  serious  than  it  can  be  under  any 
naturalistic  theory  that  humanity  is  merely  a  chance  mani¬ 
festation  of  the  chaotic  forces  that  create  the  universe  ;  and 
much  of  Loyola’s  power  was  due  to  the  intense  vividness 
with  which  he  believed  this  creed.  The  horror  of  lost  souls 
scourged  him  on  to  action  and  passionate  prayer.  It  mat¬ 
tered  nothing  to  him  in  what  national  clay  the  soul  was 
housed,  or  what  the  color  of  the  skin;  if  it  was  in  mortal 
danger,  he  felt  a  personal  fear  and  a  personal  responsibility. 

The  full  title  of  the  book  is  Spiritual  Exercises  to  conquer 
self  and  regulate  one’s  life  and  to  avoid  coming  to  a  de¬ 
termination  through  any  inordinate  affection.  He  says: 

t 

t 

By  this  name  of  Spiritual  Exercises  is  meant  any  method 
of  examining  one’s  conscience,  of  meditating,  contemplat- 


128 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


ing,  praying  aloud  or  to  oneself,  or  performing  any  other 
spiritual  operations.  For,  just  as  sauntering,  walking 
briskly,  or  running,  are  corporal  exercises,  so  spiritual  exer¬ 
cises  are  any  method  at  all  that  prepares  and  disposes  the 
soul  to  cast  away  all  inordinate  affections,  and  after  it  shall 
cast  them  off,  to  seek  and  find  the  Will  of  God  as  to  the 
ordering  of  one’s  life  and  the  salvation  of  one’s  soul. 

And  the  foundation  on  which  the  whole  teaching  rests  is 
a  dogma  of  the  purpose  of  human  life.  “Man  was  created 
for  this  end,  that  he  might  praise  and  reverence  the  Lord 
his  God,  and  by  serving  Him  to  attain  to  salvation.” 

The  Exercises  are  intended  for  a  period  lasting  about 
four  weeks.  Time  is  of  no  great  importance,  except  in  the 
matter  of  sequence,  in  that  a  novice  should  not  proceed  to  a 
new  exercise  before  he  shall  have  mastered  the  exercise 
preceding  it.  To  these  four  weeks  are  assigned  respectively 
four  several  topics.  In  the  first  week  the  novice  follows 
the  purgative  way,  and  is  bidden  to  fix  his  mind  on  the  foul¬ 
ness  of  sin;  during  the  three  other  weeks  he  is  to  contem¬ 
plate  the  beauty  of  righteousness,  under  varying  conditions, 
in  the  person  of  Christ.  There  are  two  objects  in  view: 
first,  the  immediate,  to  inspire  the  heart  with  a  desire  for 
holiness,  and  to  discipline  it  by  means  of  the  practices  en¬ 
joined;  second,  the  permanent,  to  improve  the  novice  for  all 
his  life  by  teaching  him  to  understand  the  true  values  of 
things. 

The  duties  of  the  novice  in  the  course  of  a  day  during  the 
first  week,  are  roughly  as  follows:  He  is  to  rise  from  his 
bed  at  midnight  and  pray  to  God  that  “all  his  intentions, 
actions  and  operations  may  be  ordained  purely  to  the  serv¬ 
ice  and  praise  of  His  Divine  Majesty.”  Then  he  is  to  frame 
before  his  mind’s  eye  some  scriptural  picture,  say  of  Christ 
at  Bethany,  with  all  the  physical  surroundings  just  as  they 
were  in  life,  bringing  himself  as  it  were  into  the  actual  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  living  Christ.  With  his  imagination  fixed  upon 
this  picture,  he  is  to  pray  for  shame  and  confusion  at  the 
thought  of  his  wrongdoings,  and  of  the  eternal  damnation 
that  he  deserves.  After  these  preliminaries  he  is  to  think 


THE  “SPIRITUAL  EXERCISES” 


129 


of  sin:  first  the  sin  by  which  the  angels  fell,  then  Adam’s 
sin,  and,  third,  any  definite  mortal  sin.  These  sins  are,  as  it 
were,  to  be  handled,  touched  and  weighed,  as  if  gross  and 
palpable  to  the  senses,  by  means  of  will  and  imagination. 
After  an  hour  spent  in  such  contemplation,  there  follows  an 
imaginary  dialogue.  The  novice,  bowed  beneath  an  over¬ 
powering  sense  of  treason  against  Infinite  Goodness,  must 
imagine  Christ  before  him  nailed  to  the  cross,  must  talk  to 
Him,  and  ask  Him,  how  it  could  be  that  He,  God  the 
Creator,  had  taken  upon  Himself  death  for  man’s  sake;  and 
then  he  is  to  turn  and  ask  himself,  what  he  has  done  for 
Christ,  what  he  is  doing,  and  what  he  ought  to  do.  This 
colloquy  is  to  be  conducted  as  if  a  servant  were  talking 
to  his  master,  or  a  friend  to  a  friend,  and  ends  with  a  pater 
noster. 

It  is  impossible  to  deny  the  power  that  such  a  visual 
imagining  would  exert  upon  a  sensitive  soul;  and  remem¬ 
ber  that  this  is  at  midnight,  and  after  a  fast  of  twenty-four 
hours;  none  of  the  First  Fathers  (except  one,  owing  to  sick- 
men,  if  I  remember  aright)  when  they  took  the  Exercise 
fasted  for  less  than  three  days.  The  second  Exercise  is  to 
be  performed  on  getting  up.  Again  the  prayer  for  grace 
and  the  imagined  corporal  presence  of  Christ  at  Bethany, 
and  a  passionate  prayer  for  grief  over  sin.  Thus  quick¬ 
ened,  the  novice  must  hold  an  inquest  upon  his  own  guilti¬ 
ness,  must  fetch  before  his  conscience  all  the  sins  of  all  his 
life,  recalling  the  house  where  he  lived,  conversations  with 
his  family  or  friends,  his  occupations,  and  so  forth,  in  order 
that  these  remembered  sins  shall  appear  in  all  the  inexcus¬ 
able  shamelessness  of  their  native  setting.  His  thoughts 
must  dwell  on  the  foulness  of  those  sins,  and  on  his  own 
infinite  littleness,  and  that  littleness  so  loathsome.  “Let 
me  look” — Loyola  is  thinking  of  his  own  case,  and  often 
speaks  in  the  first  person — “at  the  corruption  of  my  whole 
self,  the  wickedness  of  my  soul,  the  pollution  of  my  body, 
and  account  myself  a  kind  of  ulcer  or  abscess,  from  which 
so  great  and  noisome  a  flood  of  sins,  so  vast  a  pestilence  of 
vices,  has  flowed  forth.”  These  thoughts  are  to  be  suc¬ 
ceeded  by  an  awful  sense  of  the  omnipotence,  the  justice, 


130 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


and  the  goodness  of  God,  in  contrast  with  the  weakness,  in¬ 
iquity  and  malice  of  the  sinner.  At  this  point  comes  the 
one  poetical  fancy  in  the  stark  discipline:  the  sinner  bursts 
into  “an  exclamation  of  wonderment  and  of  intense  grati¬ 
tude,  as  I  run  through  the  list  of  all  creatures  in  my  mind, — 
that  they  have  suffered  me  to  live,  have  even  preserved  me 
in  life;  how  the  angels  .  .  .  have  borne  with  me,  and  have 
guarded  me,  and  prayed  for  me;  how  the  saints  have  been 
interceding  and  praying  for  me;  how  the  heavens,  the  sun, 
the  moon,  the  stars  and  the  elements,  the  fruits  of  the 
earth,  the  birds,  the  fishes  and  the  beasts,  have  endured  me; 
how  the  ground  has  not  opened  to  swallow  me  up,  nor 
created  new  hells  that  I  might  suffer  in  them  forever.” 
And  then  the  Exercise,  having  lasted  about  an  hour,  closes 
with  a  colloquy  between  the  sinner  and  Christ,  and  with 
promises  by  help  of  His  grace  to  amend,  and  finally,  as 
before,  with  a  pater  noster. 

The  third  Exercise  is  to  be  made  before  dinner,  the  fourth 
at  the  hour  of  Vespers,  and  the  fifth  an  hour  before  supper. 
The  former  two  are  in  the  main  repetitions  of  the  first  and 
second,  while  the  fifth  is  a  meditation  on  hell,  in  order  that, 
if  love  of  God  shall  be  of  no  avail,  fear  may  save  the  sinner. 
Here  the  five  senses, — sight,  hearing,  smell,  taste  and  touch 
— are  in  dreadful  cooperation  to  conjure  up  hell  in  all  its 
horrors  before  the  fearful  imagination,  to  summon  up  in 
palpable  presence  infernal  fires  and  souls  in  pits  of  flame, 
to  render  audible  howlings  and  blasphemies,  to  offend  the 
nostrils  by  stenches  of  filth  and  putrefaction,  to  taste  with 
the  tongue  and  palate  of  imagination  the  worm  of  con¬ 
science  and  the  bitterness  of  tears,  and  feel  the  fire 
scorching  the  sinner’s  soul.  Loyola  is  as  grim  as  Dante;  he 
always  employs  the  definite,  concrete,  image,  as  the  poet 
does,  never  touching  the  abstract,  the  pure  idea.  After  this 
contemplation,  which  according  to  the  usual  schedule  is  to 
last  about  an  hour,  there  is,  as  always  at  the  close  of  an 
exercise,  a  colloquy  with  Christ,  this  time  upon  the  topic 
of  souls  in  hell. 

For  the  other  three  weeks  the  exercises  are  concerned 
respectively  with  events  in  the  life  of  Christ;  in  the  first 


THE  “SPIRITUAL  EXERCISES” 


131 


week,  with  the  main  incidents  up  to  Palm  Sunday,  in  the 
second,  with  episodes  of  the  Passion,  and,  in  the  third,  with 
those  of  the  Resurrection  and  Ascension.  The  whole  course 
follows  the  three-fold  way,  familiar  to  mystical  literature: 
tfiE  Purgative  Way,  on  which  the  soul  is  cleansed  and  puri¬ 
fied  by  repentance  and  fear;  the  Illuminative  Way,  where¬ 
by,  as  I  take  it,  the  soul  comes  to  see  witli  spiritual  eyes  the 
light  of  mystical  truth  to  which  worldly  eyes  are  blind,  and 
learns  to  cast  aside  the  false  values  of  the  world  for  the 
true  values  of  eternal  life;  and  the  Unitive  Way,  in  which 
it  feels  the  ineffable  joy  of  the  enveloping  presence  of  God. 

Among  these  Exercises  are  one  or  two  memorable  pas¬ 
sages  that  for  convenience’  sake  I  did  not  refer  to  in  their 
places,  for  instance  this,  known  as  the  meditation  upon  the 
Two  Standards :  The  novice  is  to  think  of  Christ  and  Satan 
as  the  leaders  of  two  opposing  hosts;  Satan,  on  the  one  side, 
sending  forth  innumerable  devils  to  ensnare  souls  by  means 
of  riches,  honors  and  pleasant  vices,  while  Christ,  on  the 
other,  commends  to  His  disciples  humility  and  poverty. 
And  elsewhere,  keeping  the  same  allegory,  the  book  bids 
the  novice  bring  before  the  eyes  of  his  imagination  a 
human  king  who  shall  say  to  his  people : 

My  purpose  is  to  bring  all  the  countries  of  the  infidels 
under  my  sway.  Whosoever  chooses  to  follow  me,  let  him 
be  ready  to  take  no  food,  clothing  or  similar  things,  other 
than  such  as  he  sees  me  serve  myself  with;  he  must  stand 
fast  by  me  in  trials,  vigils  and  hardships,  so  that,  as  he  was 
a  companion  of  my  toil  and  pain,  he  shall  also  be  a  partaker 
in  my  victory  and  felicity. 

Then  follows  the  interpretation  of  the  parable.  Christ 
says: 

It  is  my  righteous  will  to  claim  for  myself  the  dominion  of 
the  whole  world,  to  conquer  all  my  enemies,  and  thereby  to 
enter  into  the  glory  of  my  Father.  Whosoever  desires  to 
come  thither  with  Me,  he  must  needs  labor  with  Me,  for 
the  reward  shall  be  according  to  the  labor. 


132 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


At  this  (the  book  says)  surely  every  man  of  sound  mind 
will  be  ready  to  trample  down  the  rebellions  of  the  flesh, 
all  love  of  self  and  of  the  world,  and  he  will  say:  “Behold, 
O  Thou  Supreme  King  and  Lord  of  all  things,  I,  though 
most  unworthy,  yet  relying  on  Thy  grace  and  help,  offer 
myself  altogether  to  Thee,  and  submit  all  that  is  mine  to 
Thee;  testifying  before  Thy  infinite  goodness,  as  also  in  the 
sight  of  Thy  glorious  Virgin  Mother  and  of  the  whole  Court 
of  Heaven,  that  it  is  my  will,  my  desire,  and  my  fixed  de¬ 
termination,  to  follow  Thee  as  close  as  possible,  and  to  imi¬ 
tate  Thee  in  bearing  all  injuries  and  adversities  with  true 
poverty,  in  things  material  as  well  as  in  things  spiritual,  if 
it  shall  please  Thy  Holy  Majesty  to  choose  me,  and  to  re¬ 
ceive  me,  for  such  ordination  of  my  life.”  This  is  Christian 
doctrine  in  its  widest  aspect,  Protestant  quite  as  much  as 
Catholic: 


The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war, 

A  kingly  crown  to  gain; 

His  blood-red  banner  streams  afar; 

Who  follows  in  his  train? 

Other  counsels  concern  particular  questions  that  beset 
scrupulous  souls.  Suppose  that  a  rich  man  be  perplexed 
as  to  the  right  attitude  toward  his  money;  his  duty  is 
neither  to  wish  to  keep  the  money,  nor  to  give  it  up,  but 
solely  to  do  with  it  whatever  may  be  for  the  better  service 
of  God.  Or,  suppose  a  man  is  to  make  election  as  to  im¬ 
portant  matters  of  conduct ;  let  him  consider  that  there  are 
some  times  better  than  others  for  coming  to  an  impartial 
decision:  God  may  give  plain  indication  of  His  will;  or, 
some  interior  joy  of  spiritual  increase,  or  perhaps,  a  feeling 
of  desolation,  may  throw  light;  and,  always  that  time  is 
best,  when  the  soul  is  in  a  state  of  tranquillity.  And  having 
waited  for  this  state  of  tranquillity,  the  chooser  must  re¬ 
member  that  the  end  for  which  he  was  created  is  to  praise 
God  and  to  save  his  own  soul.  Let  him  put  away  all  in¬ 
ordinate  affections,  bring  himself  into  a  state  of  indifference, 
and  pray  God  to  direct  his  will  in  the  right  way ;  and  finally, 
considering  all  that  may  tend  to  the  praise  of  God  and  sal- 


THE  “SPIRITUAL  EXERCISES” 


133 


vation  of  his  own  soul  from  either  choice,  let  him  set  the 
reasons  on  one  side  and  on  the  other  in  a  balance,  and  see 
which  way  the  balance  inclines.  Besides  this  method  there 
is  another:  Let  the  chooser  be  sure  that  the  love  which 
determines  him  to  choose  one  way  rather  than  the  other 
descends  from  on  high,  from  the  love  of  God;  let  him 
imagine  somebody  else,  whose  eternal  welfare  he  desires,  as 
making  the  choice ;  let  him  reflect  what  his  choice  would  be 
were  he  on  the  point  of  death;  and,  finally,  let  him  bear  in 
mind  what  decision  he  will  wish  that  he  had  made  when  his 
soul  shall  be  before  the  judgment  seat.  And  the  chooser 
must  remember  that  he  will  make  progress  in  all  spiritual 
matters  in  proportion  as  he  shall  have  divested  himself  of 
his  own  self-love,  his  own  will  and  his  own  self-interest. 

Then  there  are  rules  for  the  discernment  of  spirits,  by /K 
which  Ignatius  means  the  way  to  tell  whether  feelings  of 
elation  and  happiness  on  the  one  hand,  and  feelings  of  de¬ 
pression  on  the  other,  are  to  be  interpreted  as  coming  from 
a  good  or  evil  source,  whether  they  indicate  spiritual  health 
or  spiritual  sickness.  There  is  also  an  exposition  of  the 
three  degrees  of  humility;  the  first,  in  which  I  so  humble 
.  myself  before  God  that  I  would  not  commit  a  mortal  sin  for 
all  the  world ;  the  second,  in  which  I  am  indifferent  whether 
I  have  riches  or  poverty,  honor  or  dishonor,  a  long  or  a 
short  life,  so  long  as  the  alternatives  are  irrelevant  to  the 
service  of  God;  and  the  third,  where  “in  order  the  better 
to  imitate  Christ  our  Lord,  and  to  become  more  like  Him, 

I  desire  and  choose  rather  poverty  with  Christ  poor,  than 
riches;  to  be  scorned  with  Christ  scorned,  than  to  possess 
honors;  and  to  be  esteemed  useless  and  foolish  for  Christ’s 
sake,  since  He  was  held  to  be  such,  rather  than  to  be  ac¬ 
counted  wise  and  prudent  in  the  things  of  this  world.” 
There  are  also  provisions  for  confession  and  daily  self¬ 
examinations,  suggestions  for  keeping  a  chart  to  see  if  one 
has  made  progress  in  bridling  and  diminishing  some  par¬ 
ticular  sin,  and  rules  for  penance  and  abstinence,  for  giving 
alms,  rules  as  to  scruples,  and  rules  for  thinking  as  the 
Clpirch  thinks,  and  so  forth. 

/For  those  who  go  to  the  book  not  to  practise  its  teachings 


134 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


but  to  become  better  acquainted  with  Loyola,  it  possesses  a 
biographical  interest,  for  it  is  really  the  story,  cast  into  the 
form  of  a  manual  for  directors,  of  his  own  spiritual  expe¬ 
riences,  what  he  felt  and  what  he  did  for  the  salvation  of  his 
soul  and  the  greater  glory  of  God;,/and,  here  and 
there,  though  rarely,  a  passage  reveals  his  passionate 
temperament : 

Take,  0  Lord,  and  keep  all  my  liberty,  my  memory,  my 
understanding,  and  all  my  will,  whatsoever  I  have  and 
possess.  Thou  hast  given  all  these  things  to  me ;  to  Thee, 
O  Lord,  I  restore  them:  All  are  Thine,  dispose  of  them  all 
according  to  Thy  will.  Give  me  Thy  love  and  Thy  grace; 
that  is  enough  for  me. 

To  my  mind  the  order  and  arrangement  of  the  Exercises 
does  not  appear  to  be  determined  by  a  very  close  logical 
x  connection,  but  the  commentators  are  all  agreed  that  the 
discipline  proceeds  from  thought  to  thought,  from  medita¬ 
tion  to  meditation,  from  prayer  to  prayer,  according  to  the 
very  best  system  for  bringing  the  novice  to  the  wished  for 
state  of  mind.  I  Whether  they  are  right  or  not,  the  under¬ 
lying  purpose  is  plain  enough.  Man’s  work  is  to  do  God’s 
will,  and  he  cannot  do  this,  unless  he  becomes  a  tool  for 
divine  grace  to  work  with,  and  to  make  himself  a  tool  he 
must  renounce  self,  and  strive  to  follow  the  example  of 
Christ  on  earth.  In  one  of  his  letters,  Ignatius  says:  “There 
are  very  few  persons,  perhaps  none,  who  understand  to  the 
full  how  much  a  man  hinders  what  God  wishes  to  accomplish 
through  him,  and  would  accomplish  through  him,  but  for 
such  hindering.”  His  hope  was  to  enable  men  to  break 
down  these  hindrances  within  them,  by  persuading  them  to 
lift  up  their  eyes  to  eternal  values.  Thomas-a-Kempis 
says:  Beati  qui  interna  penetrant,  et  ad  capienda  arcana 
ccelestia  magis  ac  magis  per  quotidiana  exercitia  se  student 
prceparare.  (Blessed  are  they  that  enter  into  the  things  of 
the  spirit,  and  by  daily  exercises  strive  to  fit  themselves 
more  and  more  to  understand  the  mysteries  of  heaven.) 


CHAPTER  XIV 


LOYOLA  AND  THE  REFORMATION  IN  FRANCE  (1528-1535) 

Ignatius  stayed  seven  years  in  Paris.  During  these 
years  he  made  his  first  real  acquaintance  with  an  educa¬ 
tional  force  of  far  greater  influence  upon  him  than  any 
academic  studies.  In  an  earlier  chapter  I  laid  stress  upon 
the  importance  of  his  visit  to  Italy.  The  effect  of  the 
spirit  of  the  Renaissance  upon  him  had  been  that  of  the 
wind  upon  the  traveller.  In  Paris,  Loyola  felt  the  fresh 
breezes  of  the  Reformation,  and  again  he  wrapped  the  cloak 
of  mediaeval  tradition  the  closer  about  him.  The  result  was 
of  such  magnitude  in  his  later  life  that  I  must  digress  a 
little  to  describe  how  it  came  about;  much  as  a  biographer 
of  Voltaire  would  feel  obliged  to  dwell  upon  the  state  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  in  France  during  his  youth,  or  a 
biographer  of  Burke  upon  the  French  Revolution. 

The  new  religious  movement  was  still  in  its  infancy. 
For  generations  there  had  been  great  discontent  with  the 
conduct  of  monks  and  of  the  priesthood,  and  ecclesiastical 
reforms  of  one  kind  or  another  had  long  been  mooted,  but 
the  present  agitation  was  of  a  wider  scope  and  more  danger¬ 
ous  temper.  The  strong  wine  of  the  Renaissance  had  begun 
to  ferment  in  the  old  ecclesiastical  bottles;  and  Luther’s 
doings,  like  some  disturbing  chemical  ingredients,  had  set 
it  seething  and  foaming.  The  sixteenth  century  felt  that 
it  had  reached  its  majority,  and  was  free  to  ask  such  ques¬ 
tions  about  life,  about  the  meaning  of  things,  about  the 
truth  of  accepted  opinions,  as  it  might  please.  Speculation 
laid  hands  upon  the  traditions  of  the  Church,  the  interpre¬ 
tation  of  the  Bible,  the  doctrine  of  free  will,  of  divine  grace, 
and  the  relative  merits  of  faith  and  good  works,  in  short 
about  the  relations  of  God  to  man,  and  the  ways  in  which 

135 


136 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


God’s  will  is  manifested.  The  storm  was  already  violent  in 
Germany,  it  had  begun  to  rustle  in  the  countries  of  the 
north,  had  touched  Italy,  and  now,  as  I  say,  it  was  blowing 
westward  over  France. 

I  have  space  but  for  a  hasty  reference.  In  accordance 
with  custom,  I  have  spoken  of  Erasmus  as  the  incarnation 
of  the  free  spirit  of  inquiry  and  examination  that  marked 
those  humanists,  who  were  more  interested  in  literature 
than  in  life;  and  of  Luther  as  the  embodiment  of  the  ecclesi¬ 
astical  revolution  in  Germany.  History  is  always  easier  to 
understand,  or  at  least  pleasanter  to  read,  if  we  personify 
a  movement  in  a  man,  and  take  a  prominent  actor  as  the 
symbol  of  very  complex  social  phenomena.  So,  with  re¬ 
gard  to  the  manifestation  of  religious  reform  in  France,  I 
shall  do  the  same,  and  speak  of  Lefevre  d’Etaples  as  com¬ 
prehending  in  himself  the  first  blossoming  of  the  evangelical 
movement  there.  Lefevre  d’Etaples  was  a  saintly  scholar, 
full  of  sympathy  for  the  mystical  side  of  religious  belief, 
full  of  desire  to  come  closer  and  closer  to  the  spirit  of  Christ, 
who,  though  bound  by  strong  bonds  of  piety  to  the  past,  felt 
that  the  surer  path  was  to  be  sought  in  the  gospels  rather 
than  in  scholastic  philosophy.  He  was  chief  of  the  little 
group  of  righteous  men  who  gathered  about  Briconnet,  the 
good  bishop  of  Meaux.  His  disposition  was  so  gentle  and 
loveable  that  one  would  like  to  conjecture  that  he  belonged 
to  the  same  blood  as  our  friend  Pierre  Lefevre,  but  I  fear 
that  there  is  no  ground  for  doing  so.  As  early  as  1512 
Lefevre  d’Etaples,  then  a  professor  of  theology  at  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Paris,  enunciated,  in  moderate  form,  the  doctrine 
of  justification  by  faith,  and  a  few  years  later  published  a 
French  translation  of  the  New  Testament.  He  was  a  noble 
spirit  full  of  sweetness  and  light. 

The  outsider  sometimes  wonders  if  a  way  of  reconcilia¬ 
tion,  some  meeting  place  of  charity,  sympathy  and  mutual 
good  will  might  not  have  been  discovered.  Lefevre 
d’Etaples  says: 

You  wear  a  hair  shirt,  you  fast,  you  deny  yourself;  you 
punish  your  body,  you  pray,  you  shed  tears;  you  roll  in  the 


LOYOLA  AND  THE  REFORMATION  IN  FRANCE  137 


dust  so  that  God  may  have  compassion  on  you — you  do 
well,  excellently,  if,  in  doing  all  these  things,  you  do  not 
think  of  yourself  and  of  what  you  do,  but  of  God.  ...  If 
you  wear  a  hair  shirt;  wear  it  because  Christ  wore  one  for 
your  sake.  If  you  fast,  fast  for  Christ's  sake,  since  He 
fasted  for  yours.  ...  If  you  deny  yourself,  do  it  because 
Christ  denied  Himself.  ...  If  you  receive  blows,  receive 
them  because  Christ,  our  King,  was  beaten  with  rods  for 
your  sake.  If  you  shed  tears,  do  not  weep  over  yourself, 
but  weep  because  you  have  offended  your  Creator,  the  in¬ 
finite  Goodness,  whom  heaven  and  earth  obey.  ...  It  is 
well  to  follow  such  an  example;  but  you  draw  in  still  more 
of  His  spirit,  if  you  will  imitate  His  mercy,  His  goodness, 
His  humility,  in  that  spiritual  delight  and  in  that  word  of 
Christ  which  is  the  gospel  of  eternal  peace. 

Would  it  not  have  been  easy  to  hold  out  a  hand  of  sym¬ 
pathy  and  good  will,  and  say,  “God  be  with  us  both"? 

One  of  Lefevre’s  pupils,  Maigret,  a  poet,  lived  in  a 
spiritual  cell  where  one  might  suppose  Catholics  would  be 
at  home  and  Protestants  not  loath  to  come.  “First  a  pure 
serenity  of  soul.  Then  a  second  sacred  good,  penitence.  .  .  . 
Add  a  third  sacrifice  that  shall  propitiate  the  God  we  have 
offended: — I  will  comfort  those  in  tribulation,  I  will  min¬ 
ister  generously  to  the  poor,  I  will  aid  the  sick,  I  will  pray 
often  in  thought,  and  after  I  shall  have  persevered  in  these 
things,  I  shall  confess  that  I  have  done  nothing,  and  I  shall 
attribute  thoughts  and  act  more  to  Christ  than  to  myself." 
Might  not  this  sentiment  be  ascribed  to  humility  and  not  to 
a  Lutheran  desire  to  reject  good  works? 

But  sweetness  and  light  were  not  destined  to  play  any 
very  notable  part  in  the  ecclesiastical  confusion  of  the  six¬ 
teenth  century.  Reasonableness  disappears  when  passion 
is  afoot;  and  by  the  time  Loyola  had  come  to  Paris,  the 
tempest  was  already  sweeping  along.  Lefevre  d’Etaples 
and  his  friends  were  like  the  moderate  party  of  the  Gironde 
in  the  French  Revolution.  Events  brushed  them  aside,  and 
the  radicals  began  to  show  themselves.  As  early  as  1519 
Luther's  writings  were  sold  by  thousands  from  the  Alps  to 


138 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


the  North  Sea,  and  had  made  their  way  to  Paris;  more  and 
more  followed.  One  bookshop  sold  1400  of  these  books  or 
pamphlets.  Violent  words  were  spoken;  one  zealot  called 
the  Roman  Church  “jille  de  perdition,  Antechrist,  courti- 
sane,  prostituee.”  Inevitably,  the  two  great  conservative 
bodies,  the  University  and  the  Parlement,  became  angry. 
The  Sorbonne  condemned  the  Lutheran  doctrines  (1521). 
Lefevre  himself  was  denounced  as  a  precursor  of  Antichrist ; 
his  words  were  distorted.  The  Sorbonne  said:  “Lefevre 
mocks  the  discipline  imposed  by  rule;  he  finds  fault  with 
mortifications  of  the  flesh.  .  .  .  He  condemns,  impiously,  the 
corporal  exercises  of  the  cloister,  as  if  they  were  the  ridicu¬ 
lous  institution  of  men.”  The  monastic  orders  cried  aloud 
for  the  suppression  and  extirpation  of  their  critics.  Never¬ 
theless,  reformers  began  to  show  themselves  all  over  France, 
at  Orleans,  Toulouse,  Rouen,  Lyon,  Grenoble  and  elsewhere, 
as  well  as  in  Paris,  Rabelais  was  beginning  to  formulate 
their  thoughts  about  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne:  “maraulx, 
sophistes,  sorbillans,  sorbonnagres,  sorbonnigenes,  sorboni- 
coles,  sorb oni formes,  sorbonisecques,  boulgres,  traistres, 
.  .  .  ennemies  de  Dieu  et  de  Vertu .”  The  humanists 
scented  freedom  and  a  fresher  air,  and  inclined,  if  only  from 
intellectual  amiability,  to  give  a  hospitable  reception  to  the 
new  ideas.  The  King,  always  a  friend  to  the  humanists, 
favored  a  measure  of  reform  within  the  Church,  and,  at  first, 
welcomed  what  might  prove  a  good  card  in  playing  his  game 
of  politics  with  the  Pope.  Marguerite,  his  distinguished 
sister,  openly  befriended  the  reformers.  Even  Louise  of 
Savoy,  the  Queen  Mother,  though  not  friendly  to  the  new 
ideas,  had  her  moments  of  irritation  against  the  friars;  she 
says,  in  her  diary:  “By  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  my 
son  and  I  begin  to  recognize  hypocrites — white,  black,  gray, 
dun,  and  all  colors.  God  save  us  from  them!” 

But  political  considerations  told  heavily  against  the  re¬ 
formers.  The  King  went  off  to  the  wars,  leaving  his  mother 
regent,  lost  the  battle  of  Pavia,  was  captured  and  carried 
prisoner  to  Spain.  The  monarchy  felt  itself  a  little  insecure, 
it  could  not  afford  to  dispense  with  the  support  of  the  Sor¬ 
bonne  and  the  Parlement,  it  needed  a  united  nation  at  its 


LOYOLA  AND  THE  REFORMATION  IN  FRANCE  139 


back  to  defend  France  against  her  enemies.  Moreover,  the 
insurrections  of  the  Anabaptists  in  Germany  had  thoroughly 
alarmed  the  upper  classes  everywhere.  The  Queen  Regent 
was  a  shrewd  politician.  In  order  to  secure  the  release  of 
the  King,  she  did  her  best  to  propitiate  the  Papacy.  In 
1525  she  asked  the  Sorbonne  for  advice  “how  to  eradicate 
Luther’s  damnable  doctrine  from  their  very  Christian  land,” 
and  the  Sorbonne  was  very  ready  with  suggestions  for  fer¬ 
reting  out  and  punishing.  Decrees  were  issued  prohibiting 
printing  or  owning  the  Bible  in  France,  and  instructing  the 
bishops  to  bid  the  clergy  take  precautions  that  their  flocks 
should  not  catch  the  taint  of  Lutheran  heresy.  Between 
the  Regent,  the  Sorbonne  and  the  Parlement,  the  reformers 
were  roughly  belabored.  Lefevre  d’Etaples  fled  to  Stras- 
burg,  and  the  gentle  reformers  slunk  into  the  background, 
while  intemperate  partisans  began  to  perpetrate  outrages 
upon  the  religious  feelings  of  their  fellow  citizens.  Angry 
punishments  followed.  A  heretic  was  burned  in  the  pig- 
market  at  Paris,  in  1523.  In  1525  some  fanatic  fastened 
a  placard  to  the  door  of  the  cathedral  at  Meaux,  calling  the 
Pope  antichrist,  and  afterwards  proceeded  to  Metz  where 
he  smashed  sacred  images,  and,  after  suffering  tortures  too 
horrible  to  relate,  was  burned  alive.  In  Paris  a  young  man 
blasphemed  against  God,  Our  Lady,  and  the  Saints  in  Para¬ 
dise  ;  his  tongue  was  pierced,  he  was  strangled,  and  his  body 
burned  on  the  Place  Maubert.  The  next  year  (I  am  quot¬ 
ing  from  the  diary  of  a  Bourgeois  de  Paris )  in  April,  a 
Lutheran,  who  had  said  that  there  was  no  advantage  in 
praying  for  the  dead,  in  sprinkling  holy  water,  or  in  wor¬ 
shipping  images,  just  escaped  the  stake;  he  was  condemned 
to  prison  for  seven  years  on  a  diet  of  bread  and  water.  In 
August,  a  deacon,  because  he  denied  the  power  of  the 
Virgin  Mary  and  the  Saints,  was  burned  alive  in  the  Place 
de  Greve.  On  March  4,  1527,  on  the  same  square,  an¬ 
other  clerk  was  burned  alive  for  blasphemy  against  Our 
Lord  and  His  Glorious  Mother.  The  earlier  sufferers  be¬ 
longed  to  the  lower  orders  of  society,  but  that  same  year  a 
gentleman  was  burned  alive  in  the  pig-market  for  sowing 
the  seeds  of  Lutheran  heresy  off  in  Scotland;  and  in  De- 


140 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


cember,  a  boatman  who  plied  his  boat  on  the  Seine,  was 
burned  alive  in  the  Place  de  Greve  for  saying  that  the 
Virgin  Mary  had  no  more  power  than  the  little  image  in  his 
hand,  which  he  broke  as  he  uttered  the  blasphemy.  Loyola 
arrived  in  Paris  in  February,  1528,  and  he  must  have  heard 
of  these  doings.  Three  months  later  a  statue  of  the  Virgin 
was  found  wantonly  broken,  and  the  King,  bareheaded, 
carrying  a  lighted  taper,  walked  in  the  expiatory  procession. 
That  very  year  Noel  Beda,  dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Theology 
in  the  University  and  Principal  of  the  College  de  Mon- 
taigu,  published  his  “Apologie  contre  les  Lutheriens 
caches ”  The  next  year  there  was  a  very  famous  case.  A 
gentleman  of  distinction,  a  humanist,  a  friend  of  Erasmus, 
whose  Enchiridion  he  translated  into  French  (1523),  M. 
Louis  de  Berquin,  who  had  escaped  persecution  for  years 
owing  to  the  King’s  favor,  was  arrested  at  a  time  when  the 
King  was  absent  from  Paris,  condemned,  and  strangled,  and 
his  body  burned  in  the  Place  de  Greve  as  a  Lutheran  heretic. 

Further  efforts  at  repression  were  made,  both  big  and 
little;  the  Parlement  of  Paris  issued  its  process  against  the 
poet,  Clement  Marot,  because  he  was  said  to  have  eaten 
meat  in  Lent ;  in  spite  of  all  prohibition,  however^  the  King 
declared,  in  1533,  that  “le  crime  d’heresie  pullule  et  croit  en 
la  bonne  ville  de  Paris.”  Moreover,  the  ribaldry  and  gross¬ 
ness  of  the  scoffs  and  vituperations  cast  at  the  ancient  eccle¬ 
siastical  order  must  have  alienated  him.  Rabelais  was  hot 
for  the  reformers  at  this  time  and  continued  to  berate  the 
monks:  “Jamais  homme  noble  ne  hayst  le  bon  vin;  Pest  un 
apophthegms  monachal  ”  In  Gargantua  he  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Brother  Jean  this  comment  on  the  disciples  who 
abandoned  their  Lord  at  Gethsemane:  “Ensemble  le  diable 
me  faille  si  j’eusse  failly  de  coupper  les  jarretz  a  messieurs 
les  Apostres  qui  fuyrent  tant  laschement  apres  qu’ils  eurent 
bien  souppe,  et  laisserent  leur  bon  maistre  au  besoing.”  On 
he  goes  in  his  glorious  scurrility:  “Brevis  oratio  penetrat 
celos,  longa  potatio  evacuat  scyphos.”  Loyola  somehow  or 
other  seems  to  have  come  within  his  range  of  vision,  for  in 
his  famous  list  of  books  alleged  to  stand  on  the  library 
shelves  in  the  monastery  of  St.  Victor,  he  includes  “Le 


LOYOLA  AND  THE  REFORMATION  IN  FRANCE  141 


Faguenat  ( bad  odor )  des  Hespaignols  super  coquelicanticque 
par  jrai  Inigo.” 

In  1534  followed  the  celebrated  affair  of  the  placards. 
During  the  night  preceding  Sunday,  October  18th,  placards 
entitled,  “True  articles  concerning  the  atrocious  and  insup¬ 
portable  abuses  of  the  papistical  mass/’  etc.,  were  posted  in 
Paris,  Orleans  and  elsewhere,  and  on  the  very  door  of  the 
King's  bed-chamber  in  the  Chateau  of  Amboise.  Popular 
excitement  was  intense;  rewards  were  offered,  spies  hired, 
traitors  bribed.  In  a  few  days  some  three  hundred  persons 
were  arrested,  and  in  November  hangings  and  burnings  fol¬ 
lowed  one  another.  “You  could  see,"  one  witness  says, 
“men  suspended  over  a  fire,  burning  alive,"  and  no  doubt 
pious  indignation  was  heightened  by  the  news  that  England 
had  broken  loose  from  the  Papacy  (1534).  In  January, 
1535,  several  weeks  before  Loyola  left  for  Spain,  there  was 
a  solemn  procession  of  expiation  in  which  the  King  walked 
bareheaded,  carrying  a  wax  taper,  and  by  his  side  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  followed  by  the  great  nobles  of  the 
Kingdom.  After  mass  in  Notre-Dame  and  a  banquet  in  the 
archbishop's  palace,  the  King  addressed  the  assembled  com¬ 
pany,  and  turning  towards  the  members  of  the  Sorbonne, 
said: 

Et  vous ,  Messieurs  de  VUniversite ,  je  vous  prie,  prenez 
garde  a  vos  colleges  quelz  regens  il  y  a,  affin  que  les  jeunes 
enfjans  ne  puissent  estre  gastez.  Vous  avez  la  joy  en  vos 
mains,  vous  estes  appelez  a  cette  vaccation  [vocation?], 
f aides  en  votre  debuoir  a  la  descharge  de  voz  consciences ; 
et  si  vous  en  trouvez  de  mal  versans,  advertissez  en  la  cour 
seculiere.  ...  Si  ung  des  bras  de  mon  corps  estoit  injecte  de 
cette  farine,  je  le  voudrais  coupper,  et  si  mes  enjjans  en 
estoient  entachez,  je  les  vouldrois  moy  mesme  immoler. 

The  expiation  finished  with  more  hangings  and  burnings. 
Among  the  accused  was  Clement  Marot,  who,  though  pro¬ 
tected  by  Marguerite,  now  Queen  of  Navarre,  and  by  the 
King  himself,  fled  post  haste  to  Ferrara,  where  the  Duchess 
Renee,  a  French  princess,  was  kindly  disposed  to  the  new 


142 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


doctrines.  In  France  the  persecutions  kept  up  until  the 
King’s  desire  for  an  understanding  with  the  German  Protes¬ 
tants  compelled  him  to  become  lenient;  and  it  is  said  that 
the  Pope,  Paul  III,  protested  to  the  King  against  such 
cruelty. 

Of  all  this  turmoil,  passion  and  punishment,  there  is  no 
mention  in  the  lives  of  these  early  Jesuits,  nor  any  reference 
to  the  new  doctrines,  further  than  that  Ignatius  rescued 
Xavier  from  contamination,  and  persuaded  Bobadilla  to  for¬ 
sake  the  classics  for  theology.  Nevertheless  this  contact 
with  the  world  of  religious  revolt  affected  Ignatius 
profoundly.  He  probably  recked  little  of  hangings  and  burn- 
yQ  ings ;  punishment  for  treason  is  always  cruel,  and  it  is  ex¬ 
pedient  that  a  few  human  bodies  shall  suffer  torture  for  a 
few  minutes  in  order  to  save  multitudes  of  souls  for  all 
eternity.  But  he  must  have  brooded  over  the  awful 
thought  that  damnation  might  burst  in  from  Germany  and 
spread  over  the  Latin  world  in  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
spreading  far  and  wide  among  Teutonic  peoples.  Had  the 
reforming  movement  remained  within  the  Church,  going  no 
further  than  Lefevre  d’Etaples  went,  seeking  the  spirit  of 
Christ  as  it  appears  in  the  New  Testament  and  yet  clinging 
to  forms  and  dogmas  hallowed  by  time  and  the  passion  of 
many  generations,  it  is  conceivable  that  Loyola  might  have 
looked  upon  Reform  without  repugnance,  might  have  felt  a 
greater  confidence  in  the  free  search  for  God,  and  less  in  the 
strait  and  narrow  way  of  tradition,  that  he  was  to  help  still 
further  straiten  and  narrow.  He  might  have  avoided  the 
difficulty  of  reconciling  determinism  and  moral  responsi¬ 
bility  by  ascribing  to  God  the  mobility,  the  variety,  the  un¬ 
expectedness  that  may  be  supposed  to  belong  to  an  infinite 
being.  He  might  have  modified  his  teaching  that  men 
should  do  right  for  fear  of  hell  and  hope  of  heaven,  since 
Lefevre  d’Ftaples,  who  also  accepted  the  mystic  way  of 
purgation,  illumination  and  union  with  God,  says:  “Les 
larmes,  gectees  par  crainte  d’enfer  ou  pour  la  perte  de 
paradis  s implement ,  sont  .  .  .  larmes  demy e-perdues.” 

But  such  speculations  are  beside  the  mark,  for  the  fa¬ 
natical  reformers  outraged  public  opinion  and  took  a  posi- 


LOYOLA  AND  THE  REFORMATION  IN  FRANCE  143 


tion  that  could  only,  as  it  turned  out,  be  maintained  by 
force  of  arms.  Ignatius  drew  in  his  sympathies,  and  in  so 
doing,  as  I  have  said,  intensified  them;  he  conceived  his 
dogma  of  obedience — sicut  ac  cadaver — and  went  to  work 
is  if  he  were  a  smith  hammering  hot  iron  on  an  anvil,  and 
disciplined  his  handful  of  Christian  soldiers  as  Philip  of 
Macedon  drilled  his  phalanx.  The  nature  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus  was  (as  I  think)  in  great  measure  determined  by 
Loyola’s  experience  of  the  Lutheran  heresy  in  Paris;  and 
for  this  reason  I  have  dwelt  so  long  upon  it. 


CHAPTER  XV 


THE  VOW  AT  MONTMARTRE  AND  NEW  DISCIPLES  (1534-1536) 

The  little  company  consisted  now,  as  I  have  said,  of  the 
master,  and  six  devoted  disciples,  who  were  convinced  that 
through  him  they  had  found  the  true  way  to  serve  their 
God.  All  were  of  one  mind.  They  would  take  the  vow  of 
chastity,  and  the  vow  of  poverty;  after  being  invested  with 
priesthood  they  would  take  no  fees  for  performing  any 
sacred  office;  they  were  not,  however,  while  at  the  Uni¬ 
versity,  to  deprive  themselves  of  the  means  of  study.  They 
were  to  remain  in  Paris  long  enough  to  complete  the  theo¬ 
logical  course,  and  then  go  to  Venice  and  take  ship  for  the 
Holy  Land,  where  they  would  spend  their  lives,  devoting 
themselves  to  the  service  of  souls;  but,  if  it  should  happen 
that  on  account  of  war  with  the  Turks  no  ship  was  sailing, 
they  would  wait  at  Venice  for  a  year  in  hope,  and  on  the 
expiration  of  the  year  betake  themselves  to  Rome  and  put 
themselves  at  the  Pope’s  disposal  to  do  whatever  he  might 
bid  them  do  for  the  good  of  human  souls. 

This  was  no  sudden  resolution,  no  flare  up  of  religious 
zeal,  no  spurt  of  unstable  emotion,  but  the  matured  purpose 
of  a  man  who  had  now  spent  thirteen  years  preparing  him¬ 
self  to  prove  his  love  of  God,  a  purpose  thought  over, 
prayed  over,  and  communicated  solemnly  to  young  men 
carefully  chosen,  and  by  them  put  to  the  test  of  examination 
and  discussion,  and  confirmed  by  the  peace  which  contem¬ 
plation  of  the  fulfillment  of  that  purpose  brought  to  their 
souls.  The  earlier  companions,  the  three  in  Spain,  and  the 
first  three  in  Paris,  had  started  off  at  too  great  a  pace,  and 
had  lost  their  wind;  but  these  had  received  their  training 
under  Loyola’s  eye,  and  started  off  slow  but  sure,  and  like 
good  athletes  of  the  Lord,  they  would  run  the  race  to  the 
end. 


144 


THE  VOW  AT  MONTMARTRE  AND  NEW  DISCIPLES  145 


On  August  15,  1534,  the  feast  of  the  Assumption,  at 
daybreak,  Loyola  and  his  companions,  their  minds  made  up 
and  their  hearts  light,  took  their  way  from  the  Quartier 
Latin  across  the  Pont  St.  Michel,  through  la  Cite ,  across 
Pont  du  Change  and  through  la  Ville,  and  out  of  the  city 
gates  to  the  hill  of  Montmartre,  on  whose  top  the  great 
church  of  the  Sacre  Coeur  now  stands.  They  mounted  to 
the  deserted  little  chapel  of  St.  Denis,  about  halfway  up 
the  hill.  Nobody  else  was  there.  Lefevre,  the  only  one  of 
them  already  a  priest,  celebrated  mass,  and  then  taking  the 
host  in  his  hand,  stood  facing  them;  and  each  of  the  six, 
advancing  in  turn,  fell  on  his  knees,  pronounced  the  vows 
agreed  upon  in  a  loud  voice,  and  received  the  consecrated 
wafer.  Lefevre  then  did  the  same.  The  ceremony  over, 
they  left  the  chapel  and  walked  round  to  the  other  side  of 
the  hill  and  down  to  the  fountain,  to  which  according  to  the 
story  St.  Denis  had  carried  his  own  bleeding  head  in  his 
hands  and  where  he  washed  it.  Here  they  spent  the  day 
magna  animorum  leetitia,  in  great  joy  of  soul,  talking  of 
nothing  but  the  service  of  God,  and  at  sundown  went  home, 
praising  and  blessing  the  Lord.  Might  this  not  have  been 
St.  Francis  and  his  companions  at  the  Portiuncula  in 
Umbria?  I  will  quote  Balzac’s  feeling  about  it:  “Who  is 
there  that  would  not  admire  the  extraordinary  spectacle  of 
this  union  of  seven  men  animated  by  a  noble  purpose,  who 
turn  toward  Heaven,  and  under  the  roof  of  a  chapel  lay 
down  their  worldly  wishes  and  hopes,  and  consecrate  them¬ 
selves  to  the  happiness  of  their  fellow  men?  They  offer 
themselves  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  work  of  charity,  that  shall 
give  them  no  property,  nor  power,  nor  pleasure;  they  re¬ 
nounce  the  present  for  the  future,  looking  forward  only  to  a 
hereafter  in  Heaven  and  content  with  no  happiness  on  earth 
beyond  what  a  pure  conscience  can  bestow.” 

Long  years  afterwards,  Father  Rodriguez  said:  “These 
First  Fathers  gave  themselves  up  to  God,  and  held  nothing 
back.  They  renounced  their  own  wills  so  completely,  they 
offered  their  oblation  with  so  much  joy,  putting  all  their 
hope  in  the  divine  mercy,  that  when  I  think  of  it,  I  am  all 
emotion,  my  piety  swells  and  my  wonderment  grows  and 


146 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


grows.”  And  Ribadeneira,  who  used  to  listen  respectfully 
while  the  First  Fathers  recalled  these  happy  days,  and  is 
therefore  perhaps  a  better  witness,  for  he  had  already  seen 
and  tasted  the  fruits  before  he  was  told  of  the  blossoms, 
says  in  his  memorial: 

They  went  about  with  a  burning  desire  in  their  hearts  to 
serve  God.  And  they  were  comforted  and  quickened  in 
their  good  purpose  by  the  vow  of  poverty,  by  familiar  inter¬ 
course  day  by  day  with  one  another,  by  sweet  peace,  by 
concord,  love,  and  the  sharing  of  what  they  had  and  by 
the  communion  of  their  hearts.  And  they  imitated  the 
usage  of  the  ancient  Holy  Fathers  and  invited  one  another 
to  dinner,  according  to  their  means,  and  took  advantage  of 
the  occasion  to  talk  of  the  spirit,  and  urge  one  another  to  a 
contempt  of  this  world  and  a  desire  for  things  divine. 
These  means  were  so  efficacious,  that  all  the  while  they 
stayed  in  Paris  to  finish  their  theological  studies  there  was 
no  faintness  nor  lukewarmness  in  their  zeal  for  perfection, 
rather  it  went  on  growing  with  marked  increase  day  by  day. 

Ignatius  himself  fell  into  very  poor  health.  His  lack  of 
proper  food  disarranged  all  the  processes  of  digestion.  He 
suffered  very  much,  and  the  physicians  said  his  one  chance 
was  to  go  back  to  Spain  and  try  the  effect  of  his  native  air. 
He  was  the  more  willing  to  accede,  as  it  was  necessary  to 
transact  some  business  there  on  behalf  of  his  Spanish  dis¬ 
ciples  and  to  see  their  families,  before  they  should  put  the 
plan  of  renouncing  ordinary  life  into  operation.  But  before 
following  Ignatius  to  Spain,  it  will  be  as  well  to  introduce 
the  three  new-comers  who  joined  the  little  group  in  Paris 
after  his  departure,  and  rounded  out  the  full  number  of  the 
ten  primeros  padres,  as  they  were  afterwards  called  in  all 
reverence. 

The  first  of  the  three  is  Claude  Jay,  who  was  born  at 
Mieussy,  a  little  town  in  Haute  Savoie.  He  was  a  year  or 
two  older  than  his  compatriot  Father  Lefevre,  and  must 
have  been  born  about  1504.  Little  is  known  of  his  boy¬ 
hood,  but  it  is  said  that  he  came  “de  bien  bonne  maison.” 


THE  VOW  AT  MONTMARTRE  AND  NEW  DISCIPLES  147 


He,  too,  went  to  school  at  La  Roche,  under  the  saintly 
schoolmaster,  Peter  Villiardus,  and  though  the  school  was 
very  large,  he  may  have  known  Lefevre.  He  stayed  there 
for  many  years  and  studied  theology  with  the  head  master, 
perhaps  he  became  one  of  the  staff;  at  any  rate  he  did  not 
go  to  Paris  and  matriculate  at  the  College  de  Sainte  Barbe 
until  the  autumn  of  1534.  The  next  year  he  took  his  de¬ 
gree  as  licentiate,  and,  after  that,  probably,  was  ordained 
priest,  and  the  year  after,  perhaps  at  the  same  time  with 
Lefevre,  was  made  master  of  arts.  It  does  not  appear  that 
he  had  any  personal  acquaintance  with  Ignatius  at  this 
time,  and  we  may  assume  that  he  joined  the  saintly  fellow¬ 
ship  under  the  influence  of  Lefevre.  His  after  life  must 
have  crowned  the  expectations  of  his  schoolmaster,  but  I 
know  of  neither  special  traits  nor  strange  adventures  that 
distinguished  his  laborious  apostolic  life  from  the  lives  of 
the  other  First  Fathers.  One  anecdote  I  will  repeat,  of  the 
year  1537,  while  the  comrades  were  engaged  upon  their 
evangelical  missions  in  Venetia,  before  the  Society  received 
its  charter  from  the  Pope.  He  and  Rodriguez  went  to¬ 
gether  to  Ferrara.  I  quote  from  the  latter’s  narrative: 

There  was  fog,  a  frosty  air,  and  bitter  cold,  immoderate 
rains,  and  cloudy  sky.  We  lodged  in  the  most  poverty- 
stricken  hospice  in  the  city,  a  great  big  habitation  of  clay, 
damp  as  could  be,  with  the  winds  blowing  through  wherever 
they  listed.  This  hospitable  lodging  was  entrusted  to  the 
care  of  a  shrewish  little  old  woman,  who  would  not  let  any¬ 
body  get  into  bed  with  any  garment  on.  Before  she  re¬ 
tired,  she  compelled  every  poor  man  to  take  off  his  outer 
clothes  and  his  undergarments  right  under  her  eyes,  so  that 
in  case  they  had  sores  or  any  infectious  disease,  they  might 
be  sent  elsewhere.  If  they  passed  inspection,  they  had  to 
lay  their  clothes  on  a  remote  bench,  before  they  got  into 
bed,  in  order  that  sheets  and  blankets  should  not  be  fouled 
with  lice.  The  brothers  behaved  with  as  great  modesty  as 
was  possible  in  this  very  delicate  situation.  As  soon  as 
they  woke  from  their  first  sleep  they  got  up,  struck  a  spark 
and  lit  a  little  lamp,  and  putting  on  their  miserable  gar- 


148 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


ments,  began  to  recite  their  morning  prayers;  and  so  spent 
their  nights  in  pious  orisons.  The  little  old  woman,  how¬ 
ever,  used  to  keep  a  sharp  eye  on  what  these  brothers  did 
so  quietly  and  secretly.  Besides,  she  observed  that  they  ate 
very  little,  and  taught  Christian  principles  to  the  other 
poor  people,  and  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  they  were 
overlaid  with  sanctity,  proclaimed  her  opinion  in  a  most 
laudatory  fashion.  Now  it  happened  that  the  very  noble 
and  virtuous  Marchesa  di  Pescara  [Vittoria  Colonna]  was 
living  in  the  city  at  the  time,  and  had  long  in  mind  to  make 
a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  to  see  the  holy  places,  and  she 
wished  to  learn  about  the  character  and  religious  life  of 
the  Fathers,  not  by  gossip,  but  by  authentic  information. 
She  had  often  seen  them  in  one  of  the  city  churches,  so  she 
went  up  to  one  of  them  and  asked  him,  if  he  did  not  belong 
to  that  group  of  theologians  from  Paris,  who  were  said 
to  be  waiting  for  an  opportunity  of  sailing  to  Jerusalem. 
When  she  learned  that  they  did,  she  asked  where  they 
lodged ;  and  as  she  knew  the  hospice,  she  went  there  privily 
while  we  were  out,  and  asked  the  woman  in  charge  of  the 
hospital  ward,  who  and  what  sort  of  men  we  were.  The 
woman  answered  most  garrulously  and  most  satisfactorily. 
She  said:  “They  are  saints,  anybody  can  see,  and  they 
deserve  great  praise  for  their  spotless  behaviour  and  their 
blameless  habits,  and  their  teaching  is  wonderfully  true. 
They  neither  eat  nor  drink;  they  are  on  their  knees  all 
night  long  and  pour  out  their  prayers.  I  have  seen  them 
often  with  my  own  eyes  and  spied  on  them  sharply.”  So 
the  brothers  finally  accepted  food  from  the  Marchesa,  and 
by  her  kindness  they  were  transferred  to  a  more  com¬ 
modious  poorhouse,  where  they  had  a  room,  and  bed  and 
food  every  night,  and  lived  a  little  less  pinched,  although 
still  slenderly. 

In  later  years  Father  Jay  labored  in  various  places  in 
Germany,  and  for  a  time  occupied  the  chair  of  theology  in 
the  University  of  Ingolstadt,  left  vacant  by  the  death  of 
Johann  Eck,  Luther’s  famous  opponent.  I  notice  that  in 
one  letter  to  Loyola  he  writes:  “ Non  ci  manca  la  croce  per 


THE  VOW  AT  MONTMARTRE  AND  NEW  DISCIPLES  149 


multi  rispetti ;  non  di  meno  il  Signore  ci  consola.  We  are 
not  without  our  crosses,  but  the  Lord  comforts  us”;  and 
in  another,  “As  to  the  fruits  of  my  teaching  and  preaching 
I  can't  say;  but  if  what  a  good  many  people  have  said  to 
me  is  true,  they  have  been  more  satisfactory  to  others  than 
to  me.”  In  one  German  town  threats  were  made  to  throw 
him  into  the  river.  “It  is  as  easy,”  he  said,  “to  go  to  heaven 
by  water  as  by  land.”  He  also  was  a  good  deal  of  the  time 
in  Italy,  including  two  years  in  Ferrara,  where  he  won  the 
favor  and  affection,  it  would  seem,  of  the  duke,  Ereole  II, 
son  of  Lucrezia  Borgia.  Jay  died  a  few  years  before 
Ignatius. 

The  next  to  join  was  Paschase  Broet,  a  Frenchman,  who 
came  from  a  little  town  in  Picardy.  He  was  a  few  years 
older  than  the  other  disciples,  and  had  already  been  made 
a  priest.  His  personality  was  of  no  very  marked  character, 
but  he  was  so  good  and  innocent  that  Loyola  used  to  call 
him  the  angel  of  the  Society.  He  did  his  duty  as  he  saw 
it,  Unullis  parcens  laboribus,  nullis  fractus  adversitatibus, 
he  passed  his  life  striving  to  lead  his  fellow-men  away  from 
the  company  of  the  vicious  into  the  perfectness  of  Christian 
life.”  His  most  remarkable  experience  was  the  mission  to 
Ireland,  which  I  shall  relate  in  another  chapter.  After  this 
we  find  him  in  Italy,  at  Faenza  or  Bologna,  but  the  chief 
work  of  his  manhood  lay  in  Paris.  He  was  put  at  the  head 
of  the  French  province,  and  there  he  labored  with  great 
prudence  for  ten  years,  when  he  died  of  the  plague.  His 
last  written  communication  is  an  index  of  his  unselfish  life. 

I  Paschase  Broet  declare  that  since  I  caught  the  plague, 
I  have  not  been  to  the  garret,  and  I  have  touched  nothing, 
I  have  not  even  gone  to  the  old  refectory,  I  have  not 
touched  the  books  in  the  library.  In  my  room  I  have 
touched  some  little  books  of  devotion  in  manuscript,  and 
three  or  four  others  in  print,  such  as  the  breviary,  the  book 
on  medicines,  and  a  little  book  of  advice  about  the  plague. 
I  have  touched  some  coins,  some  of  which  are  in  the  wooden 
box  beside  the  window  by  the  stalls  in  the  library,  the  rest 
I  gave  to  John  the  cook.  I  commend  my  soul  to  the 


150 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Reverend  Lord  God,  and  to  all  the  court  of  Heaven,  and 
to  our  Reverend  Father  General  and  to  all  the  Society, 
and  to  all  of  you  scattered  on  account  of  the  plague,  and 
I  beg  you  all  to  pray  the  Lord  God  to  forgive  all  my  sins. 
I  also  ask  forgiveness  of  all  whom  I  have  offended.  I  hope 
that  through  the  prayers  of  the  Society  the  Lord  God  of 
His  mercy  will  forgive  me. 

September  11,  1562. 

Paschase  Broet. 

Of  the  third  of  these  three  new  disciples,  Father  Coduri, 
there  is  little  to  say,  for  he  lived  but  a  scant  year  after  the 
founding  of  the  Society,  and  the  few  references  merely 
speak  of  him  as  sharing  in  the  general  experiences  of  the 
fellowship.  One  incident,  however,  casts  a  little  light  upon 
his  character.  While  the  ten  comrades  were  still  tarrying, 
during  the  year  of  waiting  for  a  ship  to  Jaffa,  Coduri  and 
a  young  man,  Hoces,  who  had  come  under  Loyola’s  influ¬ 
ence  in  Venice,  went  to  Padua,  and  there  the  “Bachelor,” 
as  Hoces  was  called  in  distinction  to  the  others  who  were 
all  masters  of  arts,  died.  In  life  he  was  an  ugly  youth  of 
swarthy  complexion,  but  as  he  lay  dead,  to  the  loving  eyes 
of  Jean  Coduri,  his  countenance  looked  beautiful,  like  the 
face  of  an  angel,  so  that  Coduri  wept  for  joy,  and  could 
not  gaze  upon  the  dead  face  enough.  After  the  foundation 
of  the  Society,  because  of  his  poor  health,  he  stayed  in 
Rome,  working  in  the  garden.  There  he  died,  and  if — so 
his  comrades  thought — integrity  of  life,  love  of  his  neigh¬ 
bor,  and  sanctity  at  death  availed,  he  went  from  earth  to 
Heaven;  and  it  became  the  fashion  among  them  to  speak 
of  him  as  “el  buen  Magistro  Juan,  che  estd  en  gloria” 

These  three  new  brothers  took  the  same  vows  as  the 
others,  and  on  the  first  and  second  anniversaries  of  the  day 
of  self-consecration  at  Montmartre,  repaired  thither  with 
them,  and  all  shared  in  a  repetition  of  the  sacred  ceremony. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


BACK  IN  SPAIN  (1535) 

Loyola  did  not  complete  his  course  in  theology  at  the 
University.  His  health  gave  out.  At  this  time,  and  all 
his  life  long,  improper  and  insufficient  nourishment  played 
havoc  with  his  stomach.  It  was  imperative  to  change  his 
mode  of  life,  and  apart  from  the  physician’s  advice,  there 
were  various  reasons  for  going  to  Spain.  It  had  been  said 
that  he  was  a  fugitive  and  durst  not  go  back;  naturally  he 
wished  to  prove  this  accusation  false;  and  it  was  proper 
to  acquaint  the  families  of  his  Spanish  disciples  with  their 
purposes,  and  important  to  make  some  arrangements 
whereby  the  families  should  continue  to  support  them,  as 
well  as  to  obtain  assurance  from  his  own  friends  in  Barce¬ 
lona,  or  elsewhere,  that  they  would  continue  to  make  pro¬ 
vision  for  him.  He  left  early  in  the  year  1535.  Having 
appointed  Pierre  Lefevre  to  act  as  father,  in  his  stead,  of 
the  little  flock,  and  having  enjoined  upon  them  frequent 
communion,  penitence,  prayer,  and  daily  meditation  over 
holy  thoughts,  he  mounted  a  little  horse,  which  his  friends 
had  provided  for  his  sickly  body,  and  rode  off,  probably 
by  way  of  Orleans,  Tours  and  Bayonne,  and  over  the 
border,  direct  to  Azpeitia,  where  his  elder  brother  lived. 
Here  Loyola  insisted  upon  a  behaviour  that  bears  to  our 
eyes  a  look  of  ostentation,  or  at  least  of  exaggerated 
humility.  But  we  must  beware  of  our  modern  judgments; 
for  we  are  all  inclined  to  regard  ways  and  customs  that 
clash  with  our  own  as  outlandish,  as  barbarian  or  Gentile. 
Ignatius  lays  it  down,  in  the  Spiritual  Exercises  as  a  prin¬ 
ciple,  that  if  a  choice  of  conduct  is  in  itself  a  matter  of  in¬ 
difference  in  that  it  does  not  affect  the  glory  of  God, 
nevertheless,  if  one  way  means  a  closer  walk  in  the  foot¬ 
steps  of  Christ,  a  way  of  poverty,  of  reproach  and  con- 

151 


152 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


tumely,  then  that  is  the  path  to  be  followed.  With  this 
principle  in  mind  he  refused  his  brother’s  proffered  hos¬ 
pitality,  betook  himself  to  the  pilgrims’  hospice  and  even 
rejected  a  bed  that  his  brother  sent  him.  He  also  insisted 
upon  begging  his  food.  Such  stiffness  of  principle  after  an 
absence  of  eight  years  runs  counter  to  our  notions  of 
brotherly  kindness.  But  Ignatius  had  taken  a  vow  of 
poverty,  and  it  would  hardly  have  been  consistent  with  this 
vow  to  accept  his  brother’s  comforts  and  luxuries.  And, 
we  must  remember,  that  Ignatius  was  a  lover;  he  had  a 
passionate  longing,  a  passionate  ambition  perhaps  I  ought 
to  say,  to  do  what  the  great  saints  had  done ;  and  that  being 
so,  to  part  company  with  Lady  Poverty  even  for  a  day, 
would  have  been  for  him  an  act  of  spiritual  privation.  His 
conduct  seems  in  the  end  to  have  commended  itself  to  his 
brother. 

Ignatius  stayed  at  Azpeitia  for  about  three  months.  He 
spent  his  time  teaching  little  children  and  discoursing  to 
older  people  “concerning  the  things  of  God.”  When  he  pro¬ 
posed  to  teach,  his  brother  said:  “No  one  will  come”;  to 
which  Ignatius  answered,  “One  will  be  enough.”  But  in 
fact  many  came  and  among  them  his  brother.  He  also 
preached  on  Sundays,  and  people  rode  in  from  miles  away  in 
order  to  hear  him.  In  addition  to  these  evangelical  prac¬ 
tices,  he  busied  himself  with  the  concerns  of  the  town ;  and 
I  shall  quote  at  length  from  one  of  the  town  ordinances, 
adopted  at  his  instigation,  in  the  hope  to  disarm,  even  at 
the  cost  of  tediousness,  any  reader,  bred  upon  the  principles 
of  a  Charity  Organization  Society,  who  may  feel  a  preju¬ 
dice  against  Loyola’s  seeming  encouragement  of  mendicancy 
by  begging  himself  and  teaching  his  disciples  to  live  by 
begging.  His  biographers,  as  I  have  said,  lay  stress  upon 
the  mediaeval  aspects  of  his  conduct,  as  if  such  mediaeval 
conduct  were  the  prime  interest  in  the  biography  of  a 
saint ;  whereas  the  immense  and  dazzling  success  of  Loyola’s 
work  was  due  to  the  very  quality  that  it  was  not  mediaeval, 
but  thoroughly  modern,  adapted  to  the  needs  of  his  genera¬ 
tion  and  of  the  generations  immediately  to  follow.  The 
distinction  that  he  drew  between  begging  for  the  sake  of 


BACK  IN  SPAIN 


153 


saintliness  and  begging  from  idleness,  appears  clearly  from 
this  document.  He  himself,  in  his  Memoirs,  refers  to  the 
episode  very  briefly:  “II  Pelegrino”  (the  Pilgrim  as  he  calls 
himself)  “brought  about  an  ordinance  that  alms  for  the 
poor  should  be  given  by  public  agency  and  according  to 
fixed  regulations.”  The  details  are  these:  On  May  23, 
1535,  a  meeting  was  held  in  the  town  hall,  at  which  Loyola’s 
brother,  Martin  Garcia  de  Onaz,  Sehor  de  la  casa  e  scolar  de 
Loyola,  and  other  chief  persons  of  the  neighborhood  were 
present.  The  ordinance  adopted  reads  as  follows: 

Ordinances  for  Relief  of  the  Poor  of  Azpeitia 

Experience  shows  that  much  inconvenience  and  waste  are 
caused  by  lack  of  due  provision  that  in  every  town  and 
parish  the  poor  shall  be  supported  and  fed  in  accordance 
with  rules  laid  down  by  the  magistrates.  Many  persons 
who  could  work  and  maintain  themselves  by  their  labor 
and  sweat,  become  vagabonds  and  tramps,  making  a  jest 
of  Our  Lord’s  name ;  and  many  other  inconveniences  ensue. 

Therefore,  We  order,  decree,  and  command  that  the 
sheriffs  and  other  officers  of  this  city  from  now  on,  each 
year,  shall  choose  two  honest,  upright  citizens,  one  in 
orders,  the  other  a  layman,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  ask, 
collect,  and  store  on  ever  Sunday  and  feast  day  alms  for 
all  the  poor  of  the  town.  And  for  this  purpose,  we  exhort 
all  citizens  of  the  town,  and  lay  it  on  their  conscience,  to 
give  to  these  two  bailiffs  of  the  poor  all  the  alms  that  they 
have  heretofore  been  accustomed  to  give  to  the  poor, 
whether  natives  or  strangers,  every  one  according  to  his 
means  and  good  will;  and  the  said  bailiffs  shall  divide  and 
distribute  such  alms  among  all  the  poor  of  the  town,  having 
regard  to  the  needs  and  qualities  of  each  poor  person.  .  .  . 

And  We  further  order  and  command,  that  no  alms- 
gatherers  or  solicitors  from  any  hospital,  house  or  church, 
whether  in  this  province  or  out  of  it,  shall  dare  to  ask  any 
alms,  whether  from  door  to  door,  or  in  any  other  manner, 
in  this  town,  under  a  penalty  for  every  offense  of  six  days’ 
imprisonment,  and  also,  for  each  repetition,  fifty  strokes 


154 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


with  the  cat.  And  We  command  that  no  citizens  shall  give 
any  alms  to  such  solicitors  under  penalty  of  two  reals  for 
each  offense  proved,  to  be  applied  to  the  poor  fund.  .  .  . 

And  We  further  order  and  command  that  no  mendicants, 
from  outside  the  jurisdiction,  shall  ask  alms  from  door  to 
door  within  our  jurisdiction,  except  that  a  mendicant,  who 
cannot  work  and  earn  his  food  by  labor  and  sweat,  or  a 
pilgrim  upon  his  pilgrimage,  may  have  recourse  to  the  said 
bailiffs  of  the  poor  or  either  of  them;  and  said  bailiffs  shall 
take  into  consideration  their  condition  and  need  and  give 
alms  on  which  they  can  subsist,  but  without  harboring 
them  more  than  one  night  in  the  city. 

And  We  command  that  nobody  shall  give  alms  to  any  such 
poor  persons  within  this  jurisdiction  under  penalty  of  two 
reals,  to  be  applied  as  above,  but  that  they  must  have  re¬ 
course  to  the  aforesaid  bailiffs. 

And  We  further  order  that,  if  strangers  who  are  able 
to  work,  go  a-begging  within  our  jurisdiction,  nobody  shall 
give  them  alms,  under  penalty  of  two  reals  to  be  put  in 
the  poor  box;  but,  on  the  contrary,  every  citizen  shall 
denounce  them  and  hand  them  over  to  the  officers  of  the 
law,  on  the  ground  that  they  go  begging  although  sturdy. 
And  solicitors  for  churches  or  hospitals  from  outside  the 
jurisdiction  shall  be  punished  for  the  first  offense  with  six 
days  in  prison  and  for  the  second  with  a  hundred  lashes. 

And  We  order  and  command  that  the  poor  of  our  juris¬ 
diction  shall  not  go  begging,  either  within  this  jurisdiction 
or  out  of  it,  under  penalty  of  three  days  in  prison  and  for 
the  second  offense  six  days;  it  being  understood,  as  pro¬ 
vided  hereinbefore,  that  the  aforesaid  bailiffs  are  charged 
with  the  duty  of  maintaining  and  feeding  them  according 
to  their  several  necessities. 

Further,  in  order  to  prevent  persons  who  are  able  to 
support  themselves  by  the  labor  of  their  hands  from 
knavishly  pretending  that  they  are  poor,  so  that  they  may 
receive  the  alms  aforesaid,  the  officers  of  this  town,  now 
and  hereafter,  shall  make  a  carefully  prepared  list  of  all 
the  poor  within  this  jurisdiction,  and  the  bailiffs  aforesaid 
shall  employ  the  alms  aforesaid  to  succour  only  those  poor 


BACK  IN  SPAIN 


155 


persons  that  have  been  investigated  and  are  listed  on  the 
said  roster  by  the  town  officers,  and  no  others. 

And  We  order  and  command  that  the  directors  of  the 
hospitals  of  this  town  shall  not  admit  into  their  hospitals 
any  solicitors  from  outside  the  jurisdiction,  nor  any  poor 
persons,  who  are  capable  of  working  and  yet  go  about  beg¬ 
ging  under  penalty  of  three  days  in  jail  for  the  first  offense, 
and  payment  of  one  hundred  maravedis  for  the  poor  box, 
and  for  the  second  offense  triple  the  penalty. 

This  document  affords  a  good  example  of  the  considera¬ 
tion,  care  and  precision  with  which  Loyola  drew  up  rules 
for  conduct  of  any  kind,  as  well  as  of  his  sagacity  and  good 
sense,  but  there  was  nothing  original  in  what  he  did  here. 
Mendicancy  was  a  universal  curse ;  sturdy  beggars  swarmed 
everywhere,  and  plans  for  reform  were  taken  up  by  both 
Cortes  and  municipalities.  Perhaps  Ignatius  got  his  ideas 
from  Luis  Vives,  whom  he  saw  on  his  visit  to  Bruges;  for 
that  eminent  thinker  had  recently  drawn  up  an  elaborate 
brief,  De  Subventione  Pauperum,  in  which,  among  other 
things,  he  recommends  that  commissioners  be  appointed  to 
visit  the  hospitals,  and  ascertain  their  incomes,  the  num¬ 
bers  and  names  of  the  inmates,  and  the  reason  why  each 
one  is  there,  to  investigate  homeless  beggars,  inquire  why 
sturdy  beggars  are  not  at  work  and  find  or  create  employ¬ 
ment  for  those  that  are  able  to  work,  to  despatch  physicians 
to  look  after  the  sick,  and  send  wandering  beggars  back  to 
their  native  towns.  Besides  this  the  Cortes,  only  the  year 
before,  had  renewed  its  petition  to  the  King  to  take  some 
measures  to  diminish  mendicancy.  Here  we  find  Loyola 
borrowing  ideas  and  working  them  up  into  a  plan  that 
should  best  fit  the  needs  of  the  situation  before  him.  It 
was  in  this  same  general  fashion  that  he  had  taken  certain 
suggestions  from  Ludolf  and  others,  and,  expanding  and 
amplifying,  altering  till  the  original  nucleus  was  scarcely  if 
at  all  recognizable,  had  wrought  them  into  his  Spiritual 
Exercises.  And  later  on,  when  he  drew  up  the  constitu¬ 
tion  for  the  Society  he  availed  himself  of  academic  rules 
and  regulations  that  he  had  learned  in  Paris.  One  of  the 


156 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


faculties  of  his  genius  was  this  ability  to  take  ideas  that  lay 
ready  to  hand  and  transmute  them  into  instruments  of 
social  serviceableness,  as  Tubal  Cain  might  take  a  lump 
of  iron  and  out  of  it  create  a  coulter,  a  shield  or  a  trenchant 
blade.  Other  reforms,  as  well,  were  adopted  at  his  instance, 
but  with  these  we  need  not  concern  ourselves.  On  leaving 
Azpeitia,  he  gave  the  little  horse  which  he  had  ridden  from 
Paris,  to  the  hospice  where  he  had  been  staying.  And  out 
of  this  episode  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the  impression  he  made 
upon  people  with  whom  he  had  merely  casual  dealings; 
for,  when  the  horse  grew  old,  the  managers  of  the  hospice 
turned  it  out  at  large  in  the  fields,  as  a  token  of  respect 
for  its  master. 

When  Ignatius  set  forth  again  on  his  journey,  there  was 
another  contest  between  his  humility  and  his  brother’s 
hospitality  or  family  pride.  The  upshot  was  that  Ignatius 
accepted  a  horse  and  the  company  of  servants  to  the 
boundary  of  Guipuscoa,  but  no  further,  and  from  there  con¬ 
tinued  his  way  on  foot  and  alone.  He  went  to  Obanos, 
which  lies  a  little  to  the  south  of  Pamplona,  to  visit  Xavier’s 
family.  No  doubt  he  carried  other  letters  of  introduction 
from  each  of  his  three  Spanish  disciples  to  their  families, 
but  that  from  Francis  Xavier  is  the  only  one  that  has  been 
preserved.  It  is  addressed  to  Xavier’s  brother  Juan: 

To  my  Lord,  Captain  Azpilcueta,  Obanos 

Paris,  March  25,  1535. 

My  Lord: 

I  have  written  to  you  often  of  late,  for  many  reasons. 
I  owe  you  a  great  debt  for  the  many  acts  of  kindness  I  have 
received;  and  also  because  you  are  older  than  I.  And,  that 
you  shall  not  think  me  careless  or  ungrateful,  I  will  not  fail 
to  write  every  time  that  I  find  a  messenger.  And  if  all  my 
letters  shall  not  arrive — remember,  the  road  is  very  long — 
please  lay  the  blame  on  the  numerous  hindrances  between 
Paris  and  Obanos.  When  I  don’t  receive  answers  from  you 
to  all  my  letters,  I  always  impute  the  blame  to  the  long 
journey,  onn  which  many  of  our  letters  get  lost. 


BACK  IN  SPAIN 


157 


I  know  that  there  is  no  lack  of  affection  on  your  part; 
quite  the  contrary,  you  have  a  great  deal  for  me.  You  don’t 
know  of  the  hardships  and  privations  of  my  life  at  the 
University — I  am  without  even  the  necessaries — or  you, 
with  your  abundance  of  everything  at  home,  would  feel 
them  as  much  as  I  do.  I  put  up  with  my  troubles,  be¬ 
cause  I  am  sure  that,  when  you  learn  about  them,  your 
generosity  will  provide  an  end  to  them. 

I  have  met  here  lately  Rev.  Father  Fray  Vear  who  told 
me  all  about  the  grievances  you  held  against  me.  From 
what  he  said  I  can  see  that  you  have  been  deeply  pained. 
Nothing  could  prove  more  clearly  the  tenderness  of  your 
affection  for  me.  My  worst  regret  is  that  you  have  suf¬ 
fered  so  much  from  the  stories  of  good-for-nothing  rascals. 
I  wish  I  knew  just  who  they  are,  so  that  I  could  pay  them 
back  as  richly  as  they  deserve.  But  it  is  hard  to  discover 
them,  for  everybody  here  has  behaved  in  a  most  friendly 
way.  God  knows  how  vexed  I  am  by  being  obliged  to 
defer  the  punishment  they  deserve.  My  one  comfort  is  that 
“quod  differtur  non  aufertur,” 

Now,  in  order  that  you  may  know  beyond  a  doubt  how 
great  a  benefit  God  has  conferred  on  me  by  making  me 
acquainted  with  Master  Inigo,  I  give  you  my  word  that 
never  in  all  my  life  shall  I  be  able  to  pay  my  debt  to  him. 
Over  and  over  again,  both  with  his  purse  and  his  friends, 
he  has  succoured  my  necessities;  and,  thanks  to  him,  I  have 
withdrawn  from  bad  company  which,  owing  to  my  lack  of 
experience,  I  did  not  recognize.  But  now  that  these  heresies 
have  got  about  Paris,  I  would  not  have  been  of  their  fellow¬ 
ship  for  all  the  riches  in  the  world.  If  this  were  the  only 
service  Master  Inigo  had  done  for  me,  I  don’t  know  when 
I  could  repay  him.  I  repeat,  it  was  he  that  prevented  me 
from  consorting  with  people,  who  on  the  outside  appeared 
good,  but  whose  hearts  were  full  of  heresies,  as  the  event 
proved.  And,  therefore,  since  his  good  deeds  have  laid  me 
under  so  great  an  obligation,  I  beg  you  to  give  to  him  the 
same  reception  you  would  give  to  me.  Remember  that  if 
he  were  what  they  reported  him  to  be,  he  would  not  go  to 
your  house  and  deliver  himself  into  your  hands.  No  wrong- 


158 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


doer  puts  himself  into  the  power  of  the  man  he  has  wronged. 
By  this  one  fact  you  can  see  clearly  the  falsity  of  all  that 
has  been  said  to  you  about  Master  Inigo. 

And  now,  I  entreat  with  all  my  heart,  do  not  fail  to  get 
to  know  Master  Inigo,  and  to  talk  to  him.  Believe  every¬ 
thing  he  says.  He  is  so  God-fearing  and  of  such  high 
character  that  you  will  derive  great  benefit  from  his  con¬ 
versation  and  counsels.  Once  more,  I  beg  you  for  mercy’s 
sake,  do  this.  As  for  whatever  Master  Inigo  shall  say  to 
you  from  me,  please  believe  him  as  you  would  me.  You 
can  learn  of  my  needs  and  hardships  from  him  better  than 
from  anybody  else,  for  he  knows  them  better  than  any¬ 
body  else.  And  if  you  wish  to  relieve  my  poverty,  you  may 
hand  over  to  Master  Inigo  (the  bearer  of  this  letter)  what¬ 
ever  you  may  choose  to  give  me.  He  is  obliged  to  go  to 
Almazan  [Old  Castile]  with  letters  from  one  of  my  friends 
[Diego  Lainez]  who  comes  from  Almazan  and  is  a  student 
here.  This  friend  of  mine,  who  is  well  off,  receives  his 
remittances  by  a  sure  channel,  and  he  is  writing  to  his 
father,  that  if  Senor  Inigo  shall  give  him  funds  for  students 
here  in  Paris,  to  send  them  on  together  with  his,  by  the 
same  method.  And  since  there  is  so  secure  a  way,  I  beg 
you  to  remember  me. 

I  have  no  further  news  to  tell  you,  since  our  dear  nephew 
ran  away  from  the  University.  I  followed  him  as  far  as 
Notre-Dame  de  Clery,  thirty-four  leagues  from  Paris. 
Please  let  me  know  whether  he  arrived  in  Navarre;  I  fear 
that  he  will  never  be  good  for  much.  As  to  what  has  hap¬ 
pened  here  in  the  way  of  heresy,  Master  Inigo  will  tell  you 
all  I  could  by  writing.  So  I  conclude,  and  kiss  your  hands 
and  my  Lady’s  a  thousand  times.  And  may  God  prosper 
your  noble  lives  for  all  the  years  you  may  desire. 

Your  very  faithful  servant  and  younger  brother, 

Francis  Xavier. 

Without  doubt  Ignatius  delivered  the  letter.  From 
Obanos  he  went  to  Almazan  to  see  the  parents  of  Diego 
Lainez,  thence  to  Siguenza,  to  Toledo,  from  there  to 
Valencia,  and  up  toward  Segovia,  near  which  was  situated 


BACK  IN  SPAIN 


159 


the  Carthusian  monastery  where  his  old  disciple,  Juan  de 
Castro,  was  living.  He  returned  to  Valencia  and  there  took 
ship  for  Genoa.  The  voyage  had  a  spice  of  danger,  for 
Mohammedan  pirates  infested  the  sea.  According  to  re¬ 
port,  the  Turkish  admiral,  Barbarossa,  master  of  Algiers, 
had  recently  raided  a  town  of  Minorca,  impaled  a  thousand 
Christians  and  taken  prisoners  four  thousand  more,  while 
his  right  hand  corsair,  Cacciadiavolo,  or  a  third,  El  Judeo, 
had  laid  waste  the  coasts  of  Sardinia  and  Minorca,  and 
might  well  be  lying  off  Valencia  on  the  lookout  for  prizes. 
However,  as  it  turned  out,  the  Emperor’s  expedition  against 
Tunis  at  this  time  kept  the  pirates  busy  at  home,  and  the 
worst  misadventure  was  a  terrible  tempest,  in  which  the 
rudder  broke  and  many  on  board  gave  the  ship  up  for  lost. 
Loyola  says  that  during  the  storm  he  prepared  to  meet 
death  and  examined  his  conscience,  and  found  no  fear  of 
death,  nor  of  damnation,  but  great  trouble  and  sorrow  be¬ 
cause  he  had  not  put  to  good  use  the  gifts  and  mercies  that 
God  had  vouchsafed  him, 


CHAPTER  XVII 


VENICE  (1536) 

From  Genoa  Loyola  went  on  foot  to  Bologna,  across  the 
Apennines.  In  his  Memoirs  he  recalls  one  or  two  mishaps. 
At  one  point  he  lost  the  high-road  and  found  himself  on 
so  difficult  a  path,  between  a  rugged  mountain  side  and  a 
river  far  below,  that  he  had  to  go  on  hands  and  feet  for  a 
long  distance,  and  suffered  great  bodily  exhaustion.  This 
may  have  happened  at  Bismantova,  a  precipitous  hill  in 
Emilia,  which  stands  almost  on  a  line,  as  the  crow  flies, 
between  Genoa  and  Bologna.  Bismantova  is  an  out  of  the 
way  spot,  but  of  immortal  though  pale  renown,  because 
Dante  refers  to  it  as  an  instance  of  a  most  difficult  path, 
in  order  to  help  his  reader  imagine  how  hard  his  climb,  as 
he  goes  crawling  up  the  Mount  of  Purgatory  on  hands  and 
feet, 

e  piedi  e  man  voleva  il  suol  di  sotto. 

Loyola,  at  this  time,  was  a  poor  Italian  scholar,  and  there 
is  no  record  that  he  ever  heard  of  Dante,  but  he  may  well 
have  thought  of  Purgatory. 

And  when  he  was  reaching  Bologna  the  poor  pilgrim 
tumbled  off  a  bridge  into  water  and  mud,  to  the  delight 
of  the  bystanders;  and  finally  when  he  begged  in  the  streets 
no  one  would  give  him  a  penny.  Luckily  he  came  upon 
the  Spanish  College  and  received  its  hospitality.  At  first 
he  proposed  to  stay  and  study  at  the  university  until  his 
comrades  should  come  from  Paris;  but  he  fell  ill  and  could 
do  no  work,  so  he  changed  his  mind  and  went  on  to  Venice 
about  January  1st,  where  he  lived  for  a  whole  year  await¬ 
ing  the  tryst.  A  letter  written  not  very  long  after  his 
arrival  speaks  of  his  circumstances: 

160 


VENICE 


161 


To  Jaime  Cazador,  at  Barcelona 

Venice,  Feb.  12,  1536. 

May  the  Grace  and  love  of  Christ,  our  Saviour,  bless  us 
and  help  us  always. 

[I  omit  the  beginning.]  You  say  that  you  will  not  fail 
in  sending  the  usual  remittance;  I  am  merely  to  advise  you 
as  to  when.  Isabel  Roser  has  written  me  that  by  next 
April  she  will  provide  me  with  what  is  necessary  to  finish 
my  studies.  That  will  be  a  very  good  arrangement  for  me, 
because  I  shall  then  be  able  to  make  provision  for  the  whole 
year,  both  as  to  books  and  other  necessaries.  Meanwhile, 
though  this  city  is  very  dear,  and  my  health  does  not  at 
present  let  me  undergo  privation  or  bodily  labor  (more 
than  my  studies  lay  on  me),  I  am  sufficiently  supplied,  be¬ 
cause  she  has  sent  me  twelve  crowns,  in  addition  to  the 
alms  that,  out  of  love  and  service  to  Christ,  you  have  sent 
me.  I  hope  that  I  shall  repay  you  in  good  coin,  not  only 
for  what  you  do  for  me,  but  for  the  great  solicitude  you 
show  for  my  needs;  I  don’t  believe  that  fathers  show  more 
for  their  own  children. 

About  fifteen  days  before  Christmas  I  was  in  Bologna, 
of  those  I  spent  seven  in  bed  with  chills  and  fever  and 
pains  of  the  stomach;  so  I  decided  to  come  to  Venice  (that 
is  about  six  weeks  ago),  and  my  health  is  much  better. 
It  seems  to  me  that  I  could  not  be  better  off  in  all  these 
respects. 

be  bondad  pobre  (Poor  in  goodness), 

Inigo. 

Of  Venice,  then  in  her  glory,  Loyola  never  speaks.  His 
eyes  lacked  speculation  for  corporeal  things.  There  stood 
the  Basilica  of  Saint  Mark’s,  with  its  domes,  its  bronze 
horses,  its  gorgeous  mosaics,  and  the  nobly  austere  Cam¬ 
panile;  there  stood  the  Ducal  Palace,  the  Clock  Tower,  the 
Procuratie  Vecchie,  then  new  and  fresh,  San  Giovanni  e 
Paolo ,  the  Frari,  Santa  Maria  dei  Miracoli.  The  bronze 


162 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Colleoni,  gilded  and  glorious,  looking  like  Lucifer,  bestrode 
his  bronze  steed  as  proud  as  himself.  Palaces  of  potent 
magnificoes  lined  the  Grand  Canal.  The  Madonnas  of 
Giovanni  Bellini,  the  glorious  women  of  Palma  Yecchio, 
Bonifazio,  Paris  Bordone,  Sebastiano  del  Piombo,  of  Titian 
in  his  prime,  the  sculptures  of  Alessandro  Leopardi  and  the 
Lombardi  were  all  there,  in  the  triumphant  splendor  of 
recent  creation.  There  were  gondolas  plying  to  and  fro, 
zandolos  pushing  their  way,  barges  of  fruits  from  the  main¬ 
land,  fishing  smacks  of  many  colored  sails,  galleys  and 
argosies;  there  were  foreigners  from  everywhere,  diplomats, 
merchants,  traffickers,  noblemen  travelling  for  pleasure, 
refugees  from  persecutions  at  home,  gaberdined  Jews,  tur- 
baned  Turks,  Greek  priests,  Arabs,  Moors,  and  all  the  gaiety 
and  bustle  of  the  most  cosmopolitan  city  in  the  world. 

Other  travellers,  even  on  their  way  to  the  Holy  Land, 
had  eyes  for  these  things.  Monsieur  Le  Saige,  Monsieur 
Denis  Possot,  Monsieur  Greffin  Arfargart,  all  in  Doge 
Grimani’s  or  Doge  Gritti’s  time,  stared  full  of  wonder  and 
admiration  at  the  Piazza,  the  Piazzetta,  and  their  build¬ 
ings,  at  the  magnificent  ceremonies  in  St.  Mark’s,  at  the 
merchandise  of  East  and  West  heaped  up  along  the  Rialto, 
or,  for  instance,  by  the  Fondaco  dei  Tedeschi,  on  docks,  in 
court  yards,  in  shops  and  ware-rooms, — this  street  devoted 
to  silks,  that  to  cottons,  a  third  to  weapons,  a  fourth  to 
copper  utensils,  a  fifth  to  iron  work, — at  the  multitude  of 
ships  (more  boats,  Arfargart  wrote,  pass  through  the  canals 
than  mules  and  horses  through  the  streets  of  Paris),  at  the 
churches,  at  holy  relics,  at  the  multitude  of  mingling 
nationalities.  Englishmen  felt  in  the  same  way.  When 
James  Howell  went  there  he  rejoiced  in  Venice,  “gay,  flour¬ 
ishing,  fresh,  and  flowing  with  all  kinds  of  Bravery  and 
Delight;  ...  I  admired  her  magnificent  buildings,  her 
marvellous  situation,  her  dainty,  smooth,  neat  streets, 
whereon  you  may  walk  most  days  in  the  year  in  a  silk 
stocking  and  satin  slippers,  without  soiling  them.”  Clement 
Marot  was  there,  a  fugitive  from  Ferrara,  afraid  to  go  back 
to  France  and  face  the  charge  of  heresy.  He  writes  in  a 
letter  to  the  Duchess  of  Ferrara,  Sa  tres  illustre  Dame: 


VENICE 


163 


That  it  would  be  impossible  to  do  more  than  the  Venetians 
do  to  gratify  the  body  and  delight  the  eye;  would  that 
they  were  as  solicitous  for  their  souls,  for  to  judge  from 
their  actions  they  do  not  care  whether  they  have  a  soul 
or  not,  or  if  they  have,  they  regard  it  but  as  a  member 
of  the  body;  they  never  lift  their  eyes  above  the  earth, 
or  pay  heed  to  the  glorious  banquet  of  eternal  life.  Their 
Signors  are  very  wise  in  worldly  matters,  prudent  to  plan 
and  quick  to  execute;  pomp  and  pleasure  abound,  but  it 
is  hard  to  discern  marks  of  Christianity;  they  call  them¬ 
selves  by  the  name  of  Christ  but  follow  the  precepts  of 
Epicurus.  Every  sense  is  pampered,  and  the  body  minis¬ 
tered  to  as  though  it  harbored  man’s  highest  good;  and 
more  than  elsewhere,  among  lesser  delights  Venus  sits 
enthroned  triumphant. 

But  if  Venus  was  enthroned  too  high  in  the  hearts  of  the 
Venetians,  art — the  ennoblement  of  material  things  by 
giving  them  forms  of  beauty — was  enthroned  beside  her. 
While  Loyola  was  tending  the  sick  and  praying  by  the  bed¬ 
side  of  wretches  in  the  Hospital  for  Incurables,  not  far  from 
there,  where  the  Fondamenta  Nuove  now  are,  stood  a  house, 
half  palatial,  in  a  garden.  The  land  sloped  down  from 
terraces  to  the  lagoon.  Tall  trees  cast  a  grateful  shade 
against  the  summer  heat,  and  rustled  their  leaves  in  wel¬ 
come  breezes  from  the  north.  Flowers  and  statues  showed 
their  colors,  or  their  marble  hues,  against  the  dark  blue  of 
the  Adriatic.  Toward  sundown  gondolas  passed,  like  flocks 
of  black  swans,  filled  with  handsome  women,  singers  and 
musicians.  And  at  a  table  under  the  trees,  laden  with 
viands,  fruits  and  wines,  Titian  welcomed  the  clever  men 
of  Venice,  Pietro  Aretino,  “that  notorious  ribald  of  Arezzo, 
dreaded,  and  yet  dear  to  the  Italian  Courtiers,”  Sansovino, 
the  great  architect  and  sculptor,  some  fellow  painters,  or 
distinguished  foreigners  from  other  cities,  Jacopo  Nardi, 
the  Florentine  historian,  or  Benvenuto  Cellini,  or  some 
learned  grammarian  or  humanist..  There  they  sat,  perhaps 
quietly,  musing  over  the  fresh  canvases  that  their  host  had 
just  shown  them,  and  looking  at  the  lovely  outline  of 


164 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Murano  as  the  sun  went  down,  or  at  the  hills  and  far  off 
peaks  on  the  mainland;  or,  in  boisterous  discussion,  if  for 
instance  Aretino  heard  someone  praise  Latin  above  the 
Tuscan  tongue,  for  then  he  would  jump  to  his  feet  and  pour 
out  passionate  invectives. 

Nothing,  perhaps,  shows  better  Loyola’s  fixed  purpose  to 
live  for  the  greater  glory  of  God,  than  his  utter  oblivious¬ 
ness  to  the  pleasures  of  sense,  gross  or  delicate.  Saints  do 
not,  as  a  rule,  record  their  admiration  of  the  things  of  this 
world;  but  St.  Augustine  praised  Cicero,  St.  Benedict  chose 
for  his  first  hermitage  a  spot  on  the  river  Anio  that  Words¬ 
worth  might  have  celebrated  in  a  sequence  of  sonnets,  and 
St,  Francis  loved  the  sun  and  stars,  fire  and  water;  and, 
although  Loyola,  too,  loved  the  stars,  it  was  merely,  I  think, 
as  symbols  of  heaven.  The  chief  criticism,  perhaps,  to 
which  he  lies  exposed,  is  that  he  was  not  sensitive  to  the 
poetry  in  nature  or  art.  The  beauty  of  the  world,  the  charm 
of  human  communion,  the  drama  of  the  emotions,  the  love¬ 
liness  of  women,  the  enchantment  of  youth,  meant,  it  would 
seem,  nothing  at  all  to  him.  This  was  no  doubt  in  the 
main  due  to  the  tremendous  experience  of  his  conversion 
and  to  his  stern  self-suppression,  but  not  altogether.  There 
was  a  certain  bleak  and  stark  barrenness  on  that  side  of 
him,  like  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Californian  Sierras, 
as  if  the  rock  within  rejected  fruitfulness  out  of  disdain  for 
it  as  a  sort  of  effeminate  weakness.  He  was  as  stern  as 
Calvin,  as  inflexible  as  John  Knox;  and  if  he  had  not 
had  the  saints  and  angels  of  the  Catholic  creed  to  fill  his 
mind  with  gracious  images,  he  might  well  have  been  as 
hard  as  Calvin,  as  dour  as  Knox.  He  did  not  even  notice 
the  richness  of  the  Venetian  churches  and  the  splendor  of 
their  ritual,  the  singing  of  the  choristers,  the  gilded  images, 
the  painted  walls,  which  Clement  Marot  notices  and  com¬ 
ments  upon,  though  he  piously  says  to  his  Protestant 
protectress, 

C’est  ung  abbus  d’ydollatres  sorty. 

Loyola  went  about  his  business  in  his  own  fashion,  as  in¬ 
different  to  the  ripe  beauty  of  Venice  as  the  most  bigoted 


VENICE 


165 


crusader  might  be  to  the  delicate  beauty  of  Moorish  or 
Arabian  art.  And,  it  is  but  fair  to  add,  that  another 
attribute  of  Venice,  for  which  we  honor  her,  must  have 
horrified  him, — liberty.  “Venise  (as  one  of  the  French  pil¬ 
grims  I  have  quoted  says)  est  une  cite  de  liberte;  car  ilz 
permettent  toutes  manieres  de  gens  vivre  avecques  eulx 
comme  juifs,  turcs,  maures,  et  Chretiens  grecs  scismatiques. 
Ilz  permettent  un  chacun  vivre  selon  son  rite  et  jagon  en 
leur  pay  ant  tribute  Think  of  it !  To  permit  disrespect, 
insult,  treason  to  God,  and  for  money!  No  wonder  that 
Loyola  never  speaks  of  Venice. 

As  to  his  studies,  I  find  nothing  but  the  most  vague  refer¬ 
ence,  such  as  that  contained  in  his  letter  to  Cazador.  But, 
as  usual,  he  spent  much  of  his  time  trying  to  bring  home 
to  those  about  him  a  realization  of  the  spiritual  life.  Never 
did  he  forget  the  great  injunction,  “Lovest  thou  me?  Feed 
my  sheep.”  In  particular  he  became  intimate  with  two 
gentlemen  from  Navarre,  brothers,  it  is  said,  of  the  printer 
who  befriended  him  at  Alcala,  Don  Diego  and  Don  Estevan 
de  Eguia,  who  were  on  their  way  back  from  a  pilgrimage 
to  the  Holy  Land.  Both  finally  became  members  of  the 
Society.  Diego  lived  to  be  a  <(venerandus  et  sanctus  senex,” 
and  for  a  time  acted  as  Loyola’s  confessor.  He  often  used 
to  say,  “Oh,  if  I  might  but  tell  what  I  know  of  Master 
Ignatius!  Oh,  if  my  mouth  were  not  closed,  how  many 
great  things  I  could  tell  you!”  He  had  also  received  an 
express  command,  in  virtue  of  holy  obedience,  never  to 
speak  of  Loyola’s  private  personal  matters.  Besides  these, 
there  was  a  young  Spaniard  from  Malaga,  Diego  Hoces, 
to  whom  I  have  already  alluded,  a  student  of  theology. 
Loyola  wished  to  give  him  the  Spiritual  Exercises,  but 
Hoces,  although  divini  servitii  cupidus  was  fearful  lest  there 
might  be  something  heretical  in  them,  and  fetched  a  quan¬ 
tity  of  theological  books  to  test  them  by;  after  deliberation 
the  test  proved  satisfactory,  and  he  decided  “to  follow  the 
Pilgrim’s  way  of  life.”  He  is  reckoned  the  tenth  among  the 
first  companions,  althought  he  died  before  the  Society  re¬ 
ceived  the  papal  sanction.  He  left  to  his  comrades  the 
memory  of  a  youth  “most  fervent  in  spirit  and  by  no  means 


166 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


slothful  both  in  divine  worship  and  in  seeking  to  serve  the 
souls  of  his  neighbors.” 

Two  others,  of  greater  note  in  the  world,  also  became  his 
friends,  Pietro  Contarini,  a  relation  of  the  good  Cardinal 
Contarini,  to  whom  he  taught  the  Spiritual  Exercises,  and 
Gaspar  de  Doctis,  a  doctor  of  law,  canon  of  the  cathedral 
at  Vercelli,  and  vicar  to  the  papal  legate.  Loyola  was  also 
made  acquainted  with  a  gentleman  of  importance,  who  had 
formerly  been  an  archbishop,  and  was  destined  to  become 
a  personage  of  the  very  highest  ecclesiastical  rank,  Giovanni 
Pietro  Caraffa,  the  future  cardinal  and  Pope,  Paul  IV. 
Caraffa  was  a  remarkable  man ;  haughty,  impetuous,  ardent, 
hard  and  inflexible,  yet  of  stainless  life,  high  character  and 
great  piety.  Erasmus  praises  his  eloquence,  his  dignified 
bearing  and  his  knowledge  of  theology,  of  Latin,  Greek 
and  Hebrew.  Caraffa  was  zealous  for  a  reform  of  the  clergy, 
and  had  recently  given  proof  of  his  single-mindedness  by 
renouncing  two  bishoprics  and  joining  in  the  foundation 
of  the  new  Order  of  the  Teatini.  This  was  an  association 
of  priests,  bound  by  the  three  vows,  and  directly  subject 
to  the  Pope,  who  hoped  by  their  example,  their  preach¬ 
ing  and  good  works  to  effect  a  general  reform  in  the  habits 
of  the  Italian  priests.  The  vow  of  poverty  was  very  strict; 
they  were  not  even  to  beg,  but  to  await  the  gifts  of  the 
charitable.  They  practised  prayer  and  meditation,  studied 
the  Bible,  looked  after  the  sick  and  pilgrims,  and  took  care 
of  souls.  The  Superior  was  elected  for  three  years.  At 
the  time  of  the  sack  of  Rome,  the  little  band — there  were 
but  twelve — managed  to  escape  to  Venice,  thanks  to  the 
Venetian  ambassador.  By  the  time  Loyola  arrived  in 
Venice,  there  were  about  twenty,  and  the  Order  had  be¬ 
come  a  sort  of  seminary  for  priests.  Just  where,  how,  or 
under  what  circumstances  these  two  men  met,  we  do  not 
know,  but  something  passed  between  them  that  gave 
offense  to  Caraffa.  It  seems  that  Loyola  criticized  certain 
matters  connected  with  the  new  Order  more  freely  than 
was  acceptable  to  the  distinguished  prelate.  As  that 
criticism  is  probably  contained  in  the  following  letter, 
although  the  address  is  not  certain,  I  quote  it: 


VENICE 


167 


To  Giovanni  Pietro  Carafja 

Venice,  1536. 

Considering  how  our  eternal  happiness  has  its  being  in 
a  true  love  of  God,  and  that  it  obliges  us  all  to  a  true  affec¬ 
tion  ...  I  have  thought  to  write  this  letter,  not  with  those 
customary  compliments  (which  are  not  out  of  place,  if 
there  is  no  forgetting  of  God’s  ordinances) ;  for  he  that  for¬ 
sakes  the  world,  its  dignities  and  offices,  does  not  care  to 
be  addressed  with  ceremonious  speech,  since  he  knows  who¬ 
soever  makes  himself  least  in  this  world,  will  be  the  greatest 
hereafter.  So  .  .  .  for  the  love  of  Christ  our  Saviour,  I 
beg  you  to  read  this  with  the  same  good  will  that  it  is 
written  with ;  my  love  is  so  genuine,  that  with  all  the  vigor 
God  has  given  me,  I  beg  Him  to  grant  me  in  this  life  and 
in  the  next  the  same  good  that  I  beg  and  beseech  Him  to 
bestow  upon  you,  in  body  and  soul. 

In  this  state  of  mind,  therefore,  I  will  speak  of  three 
matters  with  as  much  directness  as  if  I  were  talking  to  my 
own  self,  not  for  the  sake  of  giving  advice,  for  it  is  always 
more  humble  to  receive  advice  than  to  give  it,  but  to  quicken 
us  in  asking  counsel  of  the  Lord,  from  whom  all  good  coun¬ 
sels  proceed. 

First,  I  think  that  there  are  good  and  sufficient  reasons 
enough  why  your  Society  should  not  separate  and 
scatter.  .  .  . 

Second,  As  to  this,  that  a  person  like  yourself,  of  such 
high  lineage,  rank  and  place,  and  besides  no  longer  young, 
should  be  a  little  luxurious  in  his  dress,  should  have  a 
large,  well  furnished  apartment,  not  so  much  to  receive 
members  of  your  Society  as  for  strangers  and  visitors — as 
to  this  I  see  neither  scandal,  nor  lack  of  edification,  be¬ 
cause  one  may  well  adjust  oneself  to  the  needs  and  pro¬ 
prieties  of  the  time  being;  but  that  which  is  not  perfect, 
ought  not  to  be  considered  perfect.  So,  it  seems  to  belong 
to  a  ripe  wisdom  (as  one  recalls  to  mind  those  blessed 
saints,  like  St.  Francis,  St.  Dominic,  and  many  others,  and 
how  they  did  at  the  time  they  founded  their  orders,  and 


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IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


gave  rules  and  set  an  example  to  their  companions)  to 
have  recourse  to  the  true  Wisdom,  to  ask  for  more  light, 
in  order  to  arrange  all  to  His  greater  service  and  praise; 
for  many  things  are  lawful,  that  are  not  expedient,  as  St. 
Paul  says;  and  this  is  so  that  others  shall  not  find  occasion 
for  lax  behaviour,  but  an  example  of  going  onward,  espe¬ 
cially  persons  of  the  household,  who  pay  great  heed  to  what 
their  master  says  and  does. 

Third,  .  .  .  [Under  this  head  he  discusses  and  indeed 
seems  to  criticize  the  advisability  of  the  principle  adopted 
by  the  Teatini  that  they  should  not  beg  for  food  but  wait 
for  it  to  be  given  to  them.] 

Inigo. 

Loyola  was  a  man  of  much  native  courtesy,  of  rare  tact, 
and  iron  self-control,  but  none  of  these  happy  qualities 
interfered  with  plain  speech,  if  he  deemed  that  plain  speech 
would  tend  to  the  service  of  God;  and  Caraffa,  a  man  of 
the  highest  rank,  wide  experience,  and  great  piety,  as  well 
as  distinction,  might  think  a  shabbily  dressed  foreigner  had 
better  be  more  reticent  of  his  unfavorable  opinions  in  a 
matter  blessed  by  the  Pope  and  highly  commended  of  clergy 
and  laity.  It  is  quite  possible,  also,  that  the  mere  fact  that 
Ignatius  was  a  Spaniard  militated  against  him  in  Caraffa’s 
mind.  Caraffa  was  no  friend  to  Spain.  When  Gonsalvo 
de  Cordova  conquered  Naples  for  Ferdinand,  Caraffa’s 
family,  the  principal  nobles  of  the  country,  had  been  favor¬ 
able  to  the  ousted  King;  and  Ferdinand  in  retaliation  had 
opposed  Caraffa’s  confirmation  as  bishop.  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  Caraffa,  as  bishop,  had  felt  called  upon  to 
oppose  various  acts  of  the  King’s  magistrates  in  Italy;  and, 
later,  when  Caraffa  was  sent  as  papal  nuncio  to  Spain, 
although  he  was  appointed  a  member  of  the  royal  council 
and  for  a  time  enjoyed  the  King’s  good  graces,  neverthe¬ 
less  he  completely  alienated  the  King  by  urging  him  fo 
renounce  his  claims  upon  Naples  in  favor  of  the  former 
dynasty.  His  appointment  on  the  council,  also,  was  not 
popular  in  Spain,  and  he  must  have  known  it;  “all  that 
the  Neapolitans  deserve,”  it  was  said,  “is  bread  and 


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169 


cudgellings” ;  and  it  was  suspected  that  he  reported  back 
to  the  Pope  matters  that  came  up  for  discussion.  Caraffa 
returned  the  ill  will;  and  long  after  he  had  gone  back  to 
Italy,  and  Charles  V  had  appointed  him  to  the  arch¬ 
bishopric  of  Brindisi,  he  still  clung  to  the  feeling.  What¬ 
ever  the  trouble  was,  it  caused  Ignatius  considerable  anxiety 
in  later  times  when  fortune  had  put  into  Caraffa’s  hands 
the  power  to  make  or  mar  the  Society  of  Jesus. 

During  his  stay  in  Venice  Ignatius  took  pains  to  main¬ 
tain  his  relation  of  spiritual  counsellor  with  his  old  friends 
in  Barcelona  and  Paris,  and  perhaps  elsewhere.  He  wrote 
direct  to  some,  and  communicated  with  others  through  his 
disciples  in  Paris,  or  through  one  of  the  early  disciples  at 
Alcala,  Lope  de  Caceres.  Some  of  his  early  letters  have 
been  preserved  and  tell  much  more  than  his  biographers 
do  of  his  method  in  giving  comfort  and  advice: 

To  Theresa  Rezadella,  my  sister  in  Christ 

Venice,  June  18,  1536. 

May  the  grace  and  love  of  Christ  bless  and  keep  us 
always. 

A  few  days  ago  I  received  your  letter.  It  caused  me  to 
rejoice  in  the  Lord,  whom  you  serve  and  desire  to  serve 
more  and  more,  and  to  whom  we  must  ascribe  whatever 
good  appears  in  His  creatures.  You  say  that  Caceres  will 
inform  me  fully  of  your  affairs.  He  has  done  so,  and  not 
only  that,  but  he  has  told  me  what  advice  he  gave  you  as 
to  each  particular.  After  reading  his  letter,  I  found  nothing 
more  for  me  to  say.  But  the  information  you  now  give 
requires  some  further  counsel,  for  everybody  can  explain 
their  own  feelings  better  than  any  one  else  can. 

You  ask  me  to  take  charge  of  you  for  love  of  Christ.  In 
truth,  for  many  years  His  divine  Majesty,  without  any 
merit  on  my  part,  has  made  me  want  to  do  whatever  I  can 
for  all  men  and  women  who  walk  according  to  His  will, 
and  to  serve  them  that  labor  in  His  service.  That  you  are 
one  of  these,  I  do  not  doubt,  and  I  trust  that  my  advice 
shall  take  substantial  form  in  act  and  deed. 


170 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


You  also  ask  me  to  write  you  at  length  what  the  Lord 
may  suggest  to  me,  and  to  communicate  my  matured 
opinion.  I  am  very  glad  to  tell  you  what  I  feel  in  the 
Lord,  and  if  it  may  appear  harsh  in  any  respect,  its  harsh¬ 
ness  will  be  directed  against  the  Enemy  who  tries  to  dis¬ 
turb  you,  rather  than  against  you.  He  disturbs  you  in  two 
ways;  and  though  he  does  not  succeed  in  causing  you  to 
commit  a  sin  that  shall  separate  you  from  God,  neverthe¬ 
less  he  bars  you  from  greater  service  of  God,  and  discom¬ 
poses  your  peace.  His  first  way  is  to  entice  you  into  a 
state  of  false  humility;  the  second  is  to  inspire  you  with  an 
extreme  fear  of  God  that  takes  possession  of  your  thoughts 
beyond  all  reason. 

Now,  as  to  the  first.  The  usual  course  that  the  Enemy 
adopts  toward  those  who  love  the  Lord  and  are  beginning 
to  serve  Him,  is  to  put  obstacles  in  their  way.  That  is 
his  first  weapon  of  offense.  For  instance,  he  instils  the 
thought:  How  shall  I  be  able  to  live  all  my  life  in  such 
penitence,  with  no  enjoyment  of  family,  friends,  or  pas¬ 
sions?  How  shall  I  live  so  solitary  a  life,  without  a  little 
respite?  He  insinuates  that  you  can  save  your  soul  with¬ 
out  so  many  trials,  and  that  just  because  of  your  hardships 
you  should  lead  an  easier  life,  but  never  a  suggestion  of 
the  consolations  which  the  Lord  giveth  to  His  new  servant, 
if  he  will  break  down  all  obstacles  and  choose  to  suffer  with 
his  Creator.  Next  the  Enemy  comes  out  with  his  second 
weapon,  that  is,  boastfulness  and  vanity,  inducing  one  to 
believe  that  there  is  much  goodness  and  sanctity  in  one¬ 
self,  and  to  assume  a  higher  place  than  he  deserves.  If  the 
servant  of  the  Lord,  by  means  of  humility  and  self- 
abasement,  repels  these  shafts,  and  does  not  yield  to  evil 
suasions,  then  the  Enemy  draws  his  third  weapon,  which  is 
false  humility.  I  explain  what  I  mean.  When  he  sees  the 
Lord’s  servant  virtuous  and  humble,  doing  what  the  Lord 
commands  and  yet  thinking  that  it  avails  him  naught,  and 
thinking  about  his  own  weakness,  quite  free  from  vanity, 
then  he  slips  in  this  thought:  “If  I  shall  speak  of  any  grace 
of  God  granted  to  me — good  works,  good  purposes  or  aspira¬ 
tions — I  shall  sin  from  a  species  of  vainglory,  for  I  shall  be 


VENICE 


171 


speaking  in  my  own  praise.’’  So  the  Enemy  induces  him 
to  hold  his  tongue  concerning  graces  granted  to  him  by  the 
Lord;  and  so  they  bear  no  fruit,  neither  in  others,  nor  in 
him.  And  the  Enemy  is  aware  that  if  the  Lord’s  servant 
keeps  thinking  of  grace  received,  it  helps  him  climb  to 
higher  things.  However,  one  should  only  speak  of  graces 
received  with  great  circumspection,  and  only  for  the  sake 
of  spiritual  advantage  for  himself  or  for  others;  that  is, 
supposing  that  he  finds  those  others  prepared,  and  believes 
that  they  will  profit  by  it. 

And,  there  is  a  further  point  with  regard  to  humility. 
The  Enemy  tries  to  entice  us  into  another  kind  of  false 
humility,  that  is,  into  an  extreme  and  wholly  wrong 
humility.  Your  case  affords  a  good  illustration  of  this. 
You  ascribe  some  weaknesses  and  apprehensions,  and  then 
you  say:  “I  am  a  good-for-little  nun,”  and  “I  seem  to  desire 
to  serve  Christ.”  You  don’t  venture  to  say,  “I  desire  to 
serve  Christ,”  or  “the  Lord  inspires  me  with  a  desire  to 
serve  Him.”.  If  you  will  consider,  you  will  understand  that 
those  desires  to  serve  Christ  are  not  of  your  doing,  but  the 
gift  of  the  Lord.  So,  you  ought  to  say:  “the  Lord  hath 
increased  my  desire  to  serve  the  Lord.”  You  praise  Him 
in  order  to  publish  His  good  gift  and  glorify  Him,  not 
yourself;  for  you  are  not  attributing  this  grace  to  yourself. 

If  the  Enemy  puffs  us  up,  we  must  be  on  the  watch  to 
abase  ourselves  and  run  over  the  inventory  of  our  sins  and 
wickedness;  but,  if  he  abases  us  and  thrusts  us  down,  then 
we  must  rise  up  in  faith  and  hope  in  the  Lord,  and  go  over 
the  blessings  we  have  received,  and  remember  how  much 
hope  we  have  of  salvation.  The  Enemy  recks  not  whether 
he  speaks  truth  or  falsehood,  his  object  is  to  win  us.  Re¬ 
member  how  the  martyrs,  when  they  were  brought  before 
pagan  judges,  declared  that  they  were  servants  of  Christ; 
but  you,  before  the  Enemy  of  mankind,  when  he  tempts 
you  and  tries  to  make  you  weak  and  fearful  with  his  tricks 
and  artifices,  you  do  not  even  dare  to  say,  “I  desire  to  serve 
our  Lord.”  But  you  should  confess  without  fear  that  you 
are  His  servant  and  that  rather  than  leave  His  service  you 
would  die  first.  If  the  Enemy  harps  on  justice,  you  hold 


172 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


to  mercy;  if  he  insinuates  mercy,  you  allege  justice.  In 
this  way  we  must  proceed  in  order  not  to  be  confounded, 
and  leave  that  mocker  mocked,  following  the  authority  of 
Holy  Writ  which  says:  “Be  ye  careful  that  ye  be  not  so 
humble  that  out  of  humility  ye  cast  yourselves  into 
foolishness.  .  . 

De  bondad  pobre, 

Ignacio. 


To  the  same : 

Venice,  Sept.  11th,  1536. 

May  the  Grace  and  love  of  Christ  bless  us  and  keep  us 
always. 

I  have  received  two  letters  from  you  at  different  times. 
1  have  answered  the  first  at  some  length,  .  .  .  and  now  I 
will  answer  your  other  questions  briefly.  .  .  . 

All  meditations,  during  which  the  mind  is  at  work,  tire 
the  body;  but  meditations  that  follow  one  another  in  quick 
succession  without  making  the  mind  work  or  calling  on  the 
deeper  parts  of  the  intelligence,  do  not  demand  any  effort, 
interior  or  exterior.  Such  meditations  do  not  fatigue  the 
body,  rather  they  rest  it,  except  under  two  conditions. 
First,  when  the  body  lacks  the  nourishment  and  recreation 
which  nature  requires  it  to  have.  As  to  lack  of  nourish¬ 
ment,  I  mean  for  instance,  in  the  case  where  a  man  is  ab¬ 
sorbed  in  meditation  and  does  not  remember  to  give  his 
body  natural  sustenance,  letting  the  usual  hours  for  food 
go  by  unnoticed.  As  to  recreation,  I  mean  pious  relaxation, 
letting  our  thoughts  wander  off  whither  they  will,  on  good 
or  indifferent  matters,  provided  they  do  not  busy  themselves 
with  wrong  matters. 

Another  thing  often  happens  to  persons  who  are  given  to 
prayer  or  contemplation  just  before  it  is  time  to  go  to  sleep; 
their  minds  are  stimulated  by  the  effort,  they  think  over 
what  they  have  contemplated  or  imagined,  and  then  they 
cannot  sleep.  From  this  condition  of  things  the  Enemy 
tries  to  derive  advantage;  because  without  sleep  the  body 
is  an  easy  prey.  This  must  be  wholly  avoided.  With  your 


VENICE 


173 


body  well,  you  can  do  much;  but  if  your  body  is  sick,  I 
don’t  know  what  you  can  do.  A  healthy  body  is  a  great  help 
both  for  doing  good  and  doing  evil;  much  evil  to  those 
whose  will  is  depraved  and  morals  bad,  much  good  to  those 
who  set  their  whole  will  on  God,  and  whose  way  of  life  is 
virtuous.  .  .  . 

Above  all,  remember  that  our  Lord  loves  you  (for  I  do 
not  doubt  that),  and  repay  Him  with  the  same  love;  and 
do  not  vex  yourself  about  thoughts,  though  they  are  evil, 
sexual  or  shameful,  or  about  trifles,  or  lukewarmness,  pro¬ 
vided  that  they  are  against  your  will,  for  neither  St.  Peter 
nor  St.  Paul  was  able  to  prevent  such  thoughts  from 
coming.  And  if  you  do  not  succeed  in  expelling  them,  you 
can  do  much  by  paying  no  heed  to  them.  Just  as  my  sal¬ 
vation  does  not  depend  on  the  good  works  of  good  angels, 
so  I  shall  not  be  damned  for  the  weaknesses  and  evil 
thoughts  which  wicked  angels — the  world  and  the  flesh — 
spread  before  me.  God  wishes  my  soul  to  conform  to  His 
will,  and  then  the  soul,  by  such  conformity,  makes  the  body 
also,  willy-nilly,  conform  to  the  divine  will.  That  is  our 
fighting  ground.  Such  is  the  pleasure  of  Eternal  Goodness. 
May  He,  of  His  infinite  grace  and  mercy,  keep  us  always 
in  His  hands. 


De  bondad  pobre, 


Inigo. 


To  Father  Manuel  Miona,  in  Paris 

Venice,  November  16,  1536. 

May  the  Grace  and  love  of  Christ  bless  us  and  keep  us 
always. 

1  want  very  much  to  know  how  things  have  gone  with 
you,  and  no  wonder,  for  I  owe  you  so  much  in  spiritual 
matters,  as  a  son  to  his  father.  And  since  it  is  my  duty  to 
repay  so  much  loving  affection  as  you  have  always  had 
for  me  and  shown  in  your  actions,  I  do  not  know  what 
better  I  can  do  for  you  in  this  life  than  to  get  you  to  prac¬ 
tise  the  Spiritual  Exercises  for  a  month  with  the  person  I 
named;  besides  you  said  you  were  ready  to  do  so.  And 


174 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


please,  for  God’s  sake,  if  you  have  tried  and  enjoyed  them, 
write  me  about  it;  and  if  not,  I  beg  you  by  His  love  and 
by  the  bitter  death  He  suffered  for  us,  to  practise  them. 
And  if  you  regret  doing  so,  besides  the  pain  you  will  give 
me,  which  I  will  submit  to,  put  me  down  as  a  mocker  of 
the  spiritual  persons  to  whom  I  owe  everything. 

I  have  not  written  to  you  personally  up  to  now,  because 
when  I  write  to  one  of  you  I  write  to  all;  and  besides 
Lefevre  can  tell  you  all  you  want  to  know  about  me;  you 
can  get  it  from  my  letters  to  him. 

Twice,  thrice,  and  as  many  more  times  as  I  can,  I  beg 
you  for  God’s  sake  to  do  what  I  ask,  so  that  hereafter  His 
divine  Majesty  shall  not  ask  me  why  I  did  not  beg  you  with 
all  my  might.  For  these  exercises  are  the  best  thing  I  can 
imagine,  or  feel,  or  understand,  in  this  life,  first  to  help  a 
man  win  advantage  for  himself,  and  second  to  be  able  to 
help  and  benefit  many  others  and  render  them  fruitful. 
For  if,  as  to  the  first,  you  shall  not  feel  a  need  of  them, 
nevertheless  as  to  the  second  you  will  see  beyond  all 
measure  how  much  it  shall  be  of  service  to  you. 

So,  I  conclude,  supplicating  the  infinite  mercy  of  God 
to  give  us  grace  to  learn  His  holy  will,  and  to  perform  it 
fully,  according  to  the  talents  committed  to  each  of  us, 
so  that  He  shall  not  say  to  us  “Thou  wicked  and  slothful 
servant,  thou  knewest  that  I  reap  where  I  sowed  not,”  etc. 

Wholly  yours  in  the  Lord, 

Inigo. 

In  Venice,  Ignatius  was  again  the  object  of  suspicion  and 
slander.  It  was  said  that  he  had  been  condemned  several 
times,  that  he  had  been  burned  in  effigy  both  in  Spain  and 
in  Paris,  and  that  he  had  fled  to  Venice  in  order  to  escape 
death,  and  what  not.  He  took  the  same  stand  that  he  had 
done  under  similar  circumstances  in  Paris,  at  Salamanca 
and  Alcala — he  went  to  the  ecclesiastical  judge,  Dr.  Gaspar 
de  Doctis,  deputy  of  the  Apostolic  Legate,  asked  for  an 
investigation  and  offered  to  appear  at  any  time;  a  proceed¬ 
ing  was  held,  a  time  was  set  for  all  to  appear  that  might 
wish  to  testify  against  him,  depositions  were  taken  and  wit- 


VENICE 


175 


nesses  examined  in  behalf  of  the  accusations  and  also  for 
the  defense;  and  after  the  matter  had  been  duly  considered, 
judgment  was  finally  given  on  October  13th,  1537.  The 
charges  were  dismissed  as  frivolous,  empty  and  false,  and 
Loyola  declared  “to  have  been  and  to  be  a  priest  of  good 
and  religious  life  and  orthodox  belief,  as  well  as  of  very 
high  reputation,  and  to  have  taught  religion  and  morality 
in  Venice  up  to  this  day.” 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


FROM  VENICE  TO  ROME  (1537-1538) 

Ignatius  passed  a  whole  year  in  Venice,  waiting  for  the 
time  agreed  upon  when  his  companions  were  to  come.  The 
agreement  had  been  that  they  should  set  forth  from  Paris 
on  January  25,  1537,  but  in  the  preceding  summer  war 
broke  out  anew  between  the  King  of  France  and  the 
Emperor,  and  the  Fathers  in  Paris,  apprehensive  lest  the 
Spaniards  among  them  should  be  arrested,  or  the  area  of 
battle  extend  to  the  north  and  bar  the  roads  into  Italy, 
decided  to  forestall  such  contingencies,  and  left  Paris 
abruptly  on  November  15,  1536.  A  letter  from  Ignatius 
to  the  confessor  of  the  French  Queen,  sister  of  Charles  V, 
a  Spanish  priest  who  had  accompanied  her  Majesty  to  Paris, 
reveals  his  perturbation  over  their  journey: 

May  the  grace  and  love  of  Jesus  Christ  always  bless  us 
and  help  us. 

I  remember  well  the  kind  and  obliging  good  will  which, 
from  your  love  and  service  toward  God,  you  have  always 
shown  to  me,  in  spite  of  my  unworthiness,  and  so  I  have 
come  ...  to  ask  for  still  more  kindness  to  the  end  of 
serving  and  praising  Almighty  God.  .  .  .  Master  Pierre 
Lefevre  and  some  companions  are  about  to  start  on  a  very 
hard  journey,  of  which  you  can  get  full  information  from 
them.  I  am  fearful  because  of  the  wars  and  troubles  that, 
on  account  of  our  sins,  have  grown  so  great  in  Christendom, 
lest  they  find  themselves  in  great  distress.  So  for  God’s 
sake,  please  help  them  as  God  may  prompt  you  and  as  may 
be  feasible.  All  will  be  for  the  love  and  glory  of  God,  and 
I  shall  regard  whatever  you  do  as  if  done  for  me  personally. 

The  little  band  might  turn  their  backs  on  the  world  and 
rise  superior  to  national  ambitions  and  enmity,  neverthe¬ 
less  the  war  “kindled  by  our  wickedness”  as  they  humbly 

176 


FROM  VENICE  TO  ROME 


177 


said,  affected  them,  not  only  directly  by  obliging  them  to 
make  a  premature  start  and  interfering  with  the  progress 
of  their  journey,  but  also,  in  a  less  obvious  but  more  perma¬ 
nent  manner,  by  its  indirect  effect  upon  the  policy  of  the 
Pope  and  of  the  various  princes  and  states  of  Italy.  And, 
therefore,  before  taking  up  the  narrative  of  their  journey 
and  further  doings,  I  shall  make  a  short  digression  in  order 
to  refresh  the  reader’s  memory  of  the  political  situation. 

For  several  years  Charles  V  and  Francis  I  had  held  to 
the  treaty  of  peace  that  had  followed  rather  lamely  upon 
the  battle  of  Pavia,  but  circumstances  had  altered,  and 
fortune  looked  with  a  more  smiling  face  upon  France.  Great 
factors  in  European  politics  veered  towards  her  side.  Henry 
VIII,  who  in  earlier  years  had  usually  inclined  to  his 
nephew  the  Emperor,  now  that  he  had  divorced  Catherine 
of  Aragon  and  broken  with  the  Papacy,  leaned  toward 
France;  the  Protestant  princes  of  Germany  had  organized 
a  league  and  looked  to  Francis  as  a  protector ;  Prince  Henry 
of  Orleans,  Francis’s  second  son,  had  married  the  Pope’s 
niece,  Catherine  de’  Medici ;  and  the  Turks  were  threatening 
Austria.  These  favoring  circumstances  confirmed  the 
French  King  in  his  purpose  to  recover  Milan  when  he 
should  get  a  good  chance,  and  he  pressed  his  advantages. 
He  grew  more  and  more  cordial  to  the  Protestant  princes, 
and  even  invited  Melanchthon  to  come  to  Paris  to  discuss 
ways  and  means  of  mutual  understanding  and  reconcilia¬ 
tion  between  the  new  opinions  and  the  old;  and  he  made 
a  secret  alliance  with  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  against  their 
“common  enemy.”  To  his  disappointment,  Clement  VII 
died,  and  the  Medici  marriage  lost  its  political  value,  but 
he  believed  that  he  could  win  the  good  will  of  the  new  Pope, 
Alessandro  Farnese,  Paul  III,  and  despatched  a  very  clever 
man  as  special  ambassador,  Jean  du  Bellay,  archbishop 
of  Paris.  At  this  juncture  Francesco  Sforza,  who  had  been 
reseated  upon  the  ducal  throne  of  Milan  by  the  Emperor 
after  having  been  ousted  by  the  French,  died  without  chil¬ 
dren.  This  afforded  Francis  his  opportunity  to  revive  the 
French  claim.  Making  a  pretext  of  civil  war  in  Savoy, 
he  overran  that  duchy  and  entered  Piedmont.  The 


178 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Emperor  struck  back  by  invading  Provence.  In  this  cam¬ 
paign  an  incident  occurred  which  connects  at  one  small  point 
the  history  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  with  that  of  Spanish 
arms  and  Spanish  literature.  The  Imperial  army  advanced 
beyond  Cannes  as  far  as  Frejus.  Near  here,  in  the  village 
of  Muey,  a  detachment  under  the  command  of  a  Spanish 
officer  attempted  to  storm  an  outlying  tower.  This  officer, 
Don  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  although  but  thirty- three  years 
old,  had  seen  considerable  service.  In  1520  he  had  fought 
for  the  King  against  the  Comuneros,  and  had  been  wounded 
about  the  same  time  as  Loyola;  he  had  served  in  the  vain 
attempt  to  relieve  the  island  of  Rhodes,  when  besieged  by 
the  Turks;  he  had  taken  part  in  the  capture  of  Fuentarabia, 
when  Xavier’s  brothers  were  officers  of  the  French  garrison ; 
in  1530  he  had  assisted  at  the  siege  of  republican  Florence, 
memorable  because  Michelangelo  had  fortified  the  city 
along  the  heights  of  San  Miniato;  and  in  1535  he  had  ac¬ 
companied  the  Emperor  in  the  successful  attack  upon 
Tunis.  Nevertheless,  his  fame  is  due,  not  to  his  sword,  but 
to  his  pen;  for  he  is  still  the  most  brilliant  lyrical  poet  in 
the  Castilian  tongue.  He  led  the  scaling  party  against  the 
tower  in  a  mad,  dare-devil  fashion,  was  desperately 
wounded,  and  died  three  weeks  later  in  the  arms  of  another 
gallant  soldier,  the  marquis  of  Lombay,  subsequently  duke 
of  Gandia,  who  is  known  to  history  as  St.  Francis  Borgia, 
third  general  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  Shortly  after  this,  the 
Imperial  army  was  repulsed  before  Marseilles  and  retreated 
ignominiously  to  Italy;  but  we  may  take  leave  of  the  wTar, 
which  was  destined  to  last  for  two  more  years,  and  return 
to  the  pilgrims. 

Fearful  of  difficulties,  as  I  have  said,  they  took  the  short¬ 
est  road  out  of  France  into  Lorraine,  via  Meaux  to  Metz. 
They  journeyed  on  foot,  poorly  clad,  with  their  skirts  tucked 
up  in  their  belts,  each  with  a  wallet  on  his  back,  containing 
Bible,  breviary,  papers,  and  little  else.  They  made  a  singu¬ 
lar  group,  but  in  spite  of  their  dress  they  presented  the 
appearance  of  gentlemen.  Francis  Xavier  came  of  a  noble 
family;  Lainez  perhaps  had  the  delicacy  of  features  that 
sometimes  indicates  an  admixture  of  the  blood  of  Spanish 


FROM  VENICE  TO  ROME 


179 


Jews;  Broet  is  said  to  have  been  a  tall  man  of  good  carriage 
and  handsome  face,  with  delicate  profile  and  reddish  beard ; 
while  Salmeron,  a  Spaniard,  was  big,  black-bearded,  with  an 
olive  skin,  and  both  had  an  aristocratic  look.  Pierre  Le- 
fevre,  the  leader,  possessed  without  doubt  a  saintly  presence, 
and  all  must  have  been  of  a  refined  and  ascetic  countenance. 
They  overheard  some  people  who  were  staring  at  them  ask 
a  peasant  who  they  were,  and  his  answer:  “Some  reformers 
who  are  going  to  reform  some  country  or  other.”  It  was 
their  custom  every  morning  when  they  started  forth,  to  say 
a  prayer,  and  again  in  the  evening  when  they  reached  their 
night’s  lodging.  The  three  that  were  already  priests, 
Lefevre,  Jay  and  Broet,  celebrated  mass  every  morning  in 
order  to  give  them  all  courage  for  the  hardships  of  the  day, 
and  as  they  trudged  along,  they  meditated  or  conversed  on 
religious  things.  They  ate  what  the  poor  eat;  and  when¬ 
ever  a  decision  was  to  be  made,  they  took  a  vote  and  fol¬ 
lowed  the  opinion  of  the  majority.  From  Metz  they 
travelled  south  to  Basel  and  Constance.  In  France  it 
rained  every  day,  while  in  Germany  and  Switzerland  the 
roads  were  deep  in  snow.  Crossing  the  Alps  was  especially 
laborious.  Besides  the  physical  difficulties,  they  were  in 
constant  danger  of  arrest  from  French  soldiers.  When 
challenged  by  French  sentries,  the  French  fathers  answered 
for  all,  “We  are  students  from  Paris,”  and  the  Spaniards 
contrived  to  escape  notice.  After  leaving  Lorraine,  they 
passed  through  Protestant  lands,  and  were  treated  with 
scant  courtesy  by  both  clergymen  and  laity.  But  at  the 
end  of  about  seven  weeks  they  reached  Venice  and  joined 
Ignatius,  on  January  6th,  1537;  as  Bobadilla  says,  “Gavisi 
.sunt  valde  omnes .” 

Their  wish  was  to  go  immediately  to  Rome  for  two  ob¬ 
jects:  to  obtain  from  the  Pope  permission  to  make  the 
pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  and  also  license  to  such  as  were  not 
already  ordained  for  ordination  as  priests,  because  not  being 
residents  of  any  particular  diocese  and  having  no  means  of 
support  they  were  canonically  disqualified.  But  it  was 
necessary  for  them  to  wait  until  spring  for  the  roads  to 
open.  In  the  meantime  they  devoted  themselves  to  works 


180 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


of  charity.  The  little  band,  divided  in  two;  half  lodged  at 
the  hospital  of  San  Giovanni  e  Paolo,  which  lies  close  beside 
the  church,  and  the  others  at  the  hospital  of  Incurables, 
which  was  situated,  I  believe,  about  where  the  barracks  now 
stand,  while  Ignatius  stayed  where  he  was.  All  passed  their 
days  in  religious  devotions  and  care  of  the  sick.  By  the 
middle  of  Lent  the  roads  were  passable.  Ignatius,  however, 
deemed  it  prudent  to  let  the  others  go  without  him,  fearing 
lest  he  might  hinder  the  success  of  their  mission,  for  the 
reason  that  he  was  persona  non  grata  to  two  personages  of 
great  influence.  One  was  Caraffa,  the  other  Dr.  Pedro 
Ortiz,  a  famous  theologian  and  canon  lawyer  of  the  Sor- 
bonne,  who  while  in  Paris  had  had  some  official  relation  to 
the  charges  laid  against  Ignatius  and  had  been  inclined  to 
treat  them  seriously.  Dr.  Ortiz  had  been  retained  by  the 
Emperor  as  counsel  for  Queen  Catherine  in  the  divorce  case, 
and  was  now  in  Rome  defending  her  rights  before  the  Pope; 
as  counsel  in  a  case  of  the  very  greatest  political  importance, 
he  was  a  person  of  high  consequence  and  to  be  dealt  with 
gingerly.  (For  these  reasons  Loyola,  who  combined,  to  a 
degree  rareTy  if  ever  seen,  worldly  shrewdness  and  spiritual 
passion, — the  prudence  of  the  serpent  and  the  guilelessness 
of  the  dove — stayed  behind  and  let  his  disciples  go  alone  on 
their  mission. 

The  nine  journeyed  three  by  three,  mingling  nationali¬ 
ties,  with  a  priest  in  each  group.  They  went  on  foot,  as 
before,  and  begged  their  way,  often  getting  no  more  than 
bread  and  water.  The  season  was  rainy,  and  the  water 
courses,  often  little  more  than  a  succession  of  stagnant  pools 
in  the  dry  months,  were  become  torrents.  Sometimes  the 
Fathers  were  obliged  to  wade  up  to  their  waists.  But  they 
took  it  all  in  good  part,  rejoicing  that  they  were  privileged 
to  suffer  privations  and  endure  hardships  for  the  sake  of  the 
Lord,  and  sang  psalms  as  they  trudged  along.  The  exercise 
and  outdoor  life — they  were  able  to  cover  twenty-eight 
miles  on  one  Sunday — did  them  much  good;  and  one  of 
them,  Jean  Coduri,  who  had  what  Ribadeneira  calls  a  sort  of 
leprosy  of  the  legs,  was  quite  cured. 

It  would  however  be  neither  a  truthful  tale  of  these  heroic 


FROM  VENICE  TO  ROME 


181 


Companions,  nor  a  faithful  picture  of  their  religious  ideas, 
if  I  were  to  give  only  what  seems  to  me  the  nobler  and  more 
rational  side  of  their  doings.  The  grotesque,  at  this  period 
of  the  Renaissance,  is  not  confined  to  such  as  Rabelais. 
Father  Rodriguez,  who  had  not  received  from  nature  a  deli¬ 
cately  tempered  mind,  nor  acquired  a  large  notion  of  re¬ 
ligion,  tells  this  anecdote  that  occurred  while  they  were  in 
Ravenna : 

It  happened  that  three  of  the  Companions  went  to  the 
same  hospital.  The  beds  offered  them  had  been  much  used 
and  were  very  dirty,  the  sheets  were  foul  and  badly  spotted 
with  blood.  Nevertheless,  two  of  them,  one  with  his  clothes 
on,  the  other  stripped,  were  not  afraid  to  get  in.  The  third 
[it  is  supposed  that  this  was  Rodriguez  himself],  kept  back 
by  horror  of  the  filth,  sought  another  spot.  But  as  he  went 
he  reflected  on  what  he  had  done,  and  grieved  greatly  that 
he  had  shirked  in  the  battle.  He  laid  it  to  weakness,  self- 
indulgence  and  delicacy  of  body,  and  mightily  desired  that 
a  new  occasion  would  offer  itself  in  which  he  might  retrieve 
the  flabby  act.  God  did  not  fail  him.  For  when  he  and 
another  brother  arrived  at  the  hospital  of  some  village,  the 
matron  informed  them  that  there  was  no  bed  except  one 
which  a  patient  had  occupied  who  had  died  that  day  of  the 
lousy  disease ;  the  sheets,  she  said,  were  clean,  for  the  patient 
had  not  used  them  while  alive,  but  they  had  been  laid  under 
his  dead  body,  out  of  respect  for  the  cross  and  for  the  priests 
who  had  come  to  the  infirmary  to  say  the  last  rites  and  bury 
the  body.  The  matron  did  not  exaggerate;  the  sheets  had 
been  sprinkled  with  holy  water,  and  were  thick  with  great 
big  lice  which  accompany  that  disease.  The  Father,  who 
had  once  been  vanquished,  now  saw  his  way  to  win  a  victory 
over  himself,  and  seized  the  opportunity.  He  took  off  all 
his  clothes  and  jumped  quickly  between  the  sheets.  The 
lice  rushed  incontinently  upon  him,  pricked  and  stung  him 
all  night  long,  and  made  his  body  smart  till  it  sweated.  Of 
a  truth  the  Father  conquered  himself,  he  conquered  and 
won  the  field  gloriously.  His  companion  also  lay  down  in 
the  same  place  but  kept  his  clothes  on. 


182 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


In  Rome,  to  their  surprise,  Dr.  Ortiz  showed  them  very 
particular  kindness.  He  procured  them  an  interview  with 
the  Pope,  eulogized  their  goodness,  their  learning  and  their 
great  desire  to  glorify  God.  The  introduction  served  them 
well.  Paul  III  was  both  a  reforming  Pope  and  a  clever  man 
of  the  world ;  he  wished  to  serve  his  religion  and  his  country, 
but  he  shared  with  many  a  predecessor  the  passion  of 
nepotism,  as  it  is  called,  lavished  honors  on  his  worthless 
son,  Pier  Luigi  Farnese,  and  made  his  two  young  grandsons 
cardinals.  He  employed  Michelangelo  to  crown  the  Palazzo 
Farnese  with  its  magnificent  cornice,  enjoyed  the  arts  of  the 
jeweler  and  goldsmith,  and  also  took  pleasure  in  the  com¬ 
pany  of  good  and  learned  men.  His  worldly  traits  are  those 
usually  remembered,  but  he  deserves  to  be  known  as  the 
first  of  the  Popes  of  the  reformation  within  the  Church. 
He  received  the  nine  Companions  very  graciously,  and  put 
them  to  the  proof  then  and  there,  by  requesting  a  discussion 
on  a  point  of  theology.  They  stood  the  test  so  well,  that  he 
granted  them  permission  to  make  the  pilgrimage  to  Jeru¬ 
salem,  and  headed  a  subscription  with  sixty  crowns  to  pay 
for  their  journey.  Others  of  the  curia,  principally  Span¬ 
iards,  also  contributed,  and  in  all  two  hundred  and  ten 
gold  crowns  were  raised.  It  must  be  said  at  once  that  the 
Companions  regarded  this  sum  as  destined  solely  to  pay 
their  way  to  Jerusalem,  and  when  it  became  apparent  that 
they  could  not  go,  they  returned  the  money  to  the  givers. 
License  was  also  granted  them,  in  virtue  of  their  learning 
and  their  vow  of  poverty,  to  take  priest’s  orders,  without 
obligation  of  accepting  a  benefice,  that  is,  leaving  them  free 
of  parochial  duties.  Their  objects  thus  attained,  they  went 
back  to  Venice. 

The  Seigniory  was  at  war  with  the  Turks  and  little  pros¬ 
pect  showed  itself  of  a  passenger  ship  sailing  for  Jaffa; 
nevertheless  the  brethren  held  fast  to  their  plan  of  waiting 
for  a  year.  Those  not  already  priests,  except  Salmeron  who 
was  still  a  year  or  so  too  young,  were  ordained,  and  then,  in 
their  humility,  determined  before  saying  their  first  mass,  to 
undergo  special  spiritual  preparation  by  means  of  a  retreat 
for  forty  days  with  prayer  and  meditation,  and  all  proposed 


FROM  VENICE  TO  ROME 


183 


to  spend  the  rest  of  the  time  conducting  evangelical  mis¬ 
sions.  For  this  purpose  they  left  Venice,  going  in  twos  or 
threes  to  different  towns  roundabout.  Loyola,  Lefevre  and 
Lainez  went  to  Vicenza,  Xavier  and  Salmeron  to  Monte 
Celso,  Hoces  and  Coduri  to  Treviso,  Jay  and  Rodriguez  to 
Bassano,  Broet  and  Bobadilla  to  Verona.  Loyola's  party 
established  themselves  in  a  deserted  monastery  wrecked  by 
soldiers  in  the  open  country  about  a  mile  outside  the  walls 
of  Vicenza;  it  had  neither  door  nor  windows,  and  the  wind 
blew  through  the  openings  at  will.  Straw  strewn  on  the 
floor  was  their  only  bed.  Twice  a  day  two  of  them  went 
their  rounds  begging  in  Vicenza,  and  were  hardly  given 
enough  to  support  life;  no  wine,  no  meat,  only  a  little  bread, 
hardly  ever  any  butter  or  oil,  while  the  third  stayed  at  home 
and  boiled  the  bread  in  order  to  make  it  soft  enough  to  eat. 
The  rest  of  the  day  was  spent  in  prayer  and  contemplation. 
After  the  prescribed  period  of  forty  days  had  elapsed,  Jean 
Coduri  joined  these  three,  and  they  set  about  their  evan¬ 
gelical  work.  Going  into  town,  they  separated,  and  re¬ 
paired  to  four  several  squares.  Then  each  shouted  aloud 
and  waved  his  hat  in  order  to  catch  the  attention  of  passers- 
by  and  draw  a  crowd;  then  each  began  to  preach,  but  in  an 
Italian  rendered  difficult  of  understanding  by  bad  grammar, 
foreign  words  and  idioms,  and  by  their  respective  Spanish, 
French  and  Savoyard  accents.  Nevertheless  people  lis¬ 
tened;  possibly  in  the  crowd  that  clustered  about  one  or 
another  of  these  outlandish  preachers  was  a  lad  of  twenty,  a 
native  of  the  town,  Andrea  Palladio.  The  preachers 
preached  on  the  ugliness  of  vice,  the  beauty  of  virtue,  on 
the  love  of  God,  on  contempt  of  the  world,  how  dreadful  sin 
is,  and  upon  whatever  topic  they  hoped  would  rouse  the 
hearts  of  their  hearers  to  strive  for  the  attainment  of  that 
blessed  end  for  which  mankind  was  created.  The  people  of 
Vicenza  were  touched,  the  seed  fell  on  good  soil  and  brought 
forth  abundantly;  and  thereafter  alms  were  given  in  plenty. 

What  the  Companions  considered  and  spoke  of  as  plenty 
would  probably  square  but  poorly  with  our  modern  ideas  of 
diet  and  hygiene.  Loyola  was  ill,  Lainez  also,  when  word 
came  that  Simon  Rodriguez  lay  at  death's  door  in  a  poor 


184 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


hermitage  near  Bassano.  The  place  was  a  day’s  journey 
from  Vicenza,  but  Loyola,  fever-stricken  as  he  was,  imme¬ 
diately  got  up,  left  Lainez  in  a  hospital,  and  started  on  the 
road  to  Bassano  at  so  smart  a  pace  that  Lefevre  had  great 
difficulty  to  keep  up  with  him.  At  one  point  Ignatius  out¬ 
stripped  him  and  stopped  to  pray  for  Rodriguez,  and,  when 
his  companion  rejoined  him,  said  with  joyful  confidence, 
“We  need  not  be  distressed,  Brother  Lefevre,  for  Simon  will 
not  die  of  this  illness.”  And  when  they  reached  Bassano 
and  found  Rodriguez  emaciated  in  pitiable  plight,  Loyola 
spoke  comfort  to  him:  “Don’t  be  afraid,  Brother  Simon, 
this  time  you  shall  get  well.”  So  he  did,  and  both  he  and 
Lefevre  ascribed  his  recovery  to  Loyola’s  prayers.  Lefevre 
on  their  return,  recounted  this  episode  to  Lainez,  and  he 
himself  told  Ribadeneira,  who  publishes  it  in  his  biography. 
Other  signs  of  divine  visitation  were  bestowed  upon  Loyola 
at  this  time.  He  had  many  spiritual  visions,  and  other  ex¬ 
periences  of  spiritual  comfort,  especially  at  Venice  while  he 
was  preparing  his  mind  to  receive  sacred  orders,  and  when¬ 
ever  he  went  on  a  journey  he  was  favored  with  supernatural 
manifestations,  such  as  he  used  to  meet  with  at  Manresa. 

Meanwhile  the  others  likewise  had  preached,  prayed,  and 
lived  on  scraps  at  their  respective  places,  and  now  all  met 
together  at  Vicenza.  They  were  very  happy  over  the  first 
fruits  of  the  harvest.  Rodriguez  says:  “And  the  Com¬ 
panions,  when  they  beheld  the  rich  crop  which  the  most 
merciful  Lord  of  the  Vineyard  was  gathering  in,  esteemed 
hunger,  cold  and  other  hardships  as  sweetest  dainties  for 
their  souls,  and  singular  proofs  of  divine  beneficence. 
Thanks  and  praise  without  end  be  unto  Him  for  such  great 
mercies.”  But,  however  abundant  the  crop,  preaching  in 
Vicenza  was  not  the  object  of  their  association,  and  the 
little  Company  of  Jesus,  as  they  had  begun  to  call  them¬ 
selves,  seeing  that  winter  was  drawing  on  and  that  there  was 
no  hope  of  taking  ship  for  Jerusalem,  agreed  that  the  pri¬ 
mary  purpose  of  their  covenant  must  be  renounced,  and 
that  they  must  adopt  the  alternate  purpose,  and  offer  them¬ 
selves  and  their  services  to  the  Holy  See.  It  was  decided  to 
separate.  Loyola,  Lainez  and  Lefevre  set  out  for  Rome, 


FROM  VENICE  TO  ROME 


185 


but  the  others  went,  two  and  two,  to  Padua,  Ferrara, 
Bologna,  Siena,  all  seats  of  universities,  in  the  hope  of  per¬ 
suading  some  young  scholars  to  join  them.  Their  experi¬ 
ences  were  varied.  Coduri  and  Hoces,  who  went  to  Padua, 
by  mischance  spent  their  first  night  in  prison,  whereas 
Claude  Jay  and  Simon  Rodriguez,  who  went  to  Ferrara, 
were  well  treated  by  Duke  Ercole.  For  this  they  seem  to 
have  been  indebted  to  Vittoria  Colonna.  He  listened  to 
their  sermons,  confessed  to  them,  received  the  eucharist  at 
their  hands,  and  promised  to  pay  the  cost  of  their  journey 
to  Jerusalem.  One  cannot  but  fear  that  the  duke,  who  was 
at  the  time  allied  to  the  Emperor  and  Pope  against  Francis 
I,  was  willing  to  lay  an  emphasis  upon  the  difference  be¬ 
tween  his  orthodoxy  and  the  wayward  opinions  of  his  French 
wife,  the  Duchess  Renee,  who  had  harbored  Calvin  and 
Clement  Marot,  and  been  most  friendly  to  the  French  am¬ 
bassador,  Jean  du  Bellay,  and  his  secretary,  Frangois  Rabe¬ 
lais,  and  other  members  of  the  embassy. 

For  the  most  part,  these  wandering  preachers,  reformed 
priests  or  Parisian  priests  as  they  were  called,  conducted 
their  missions  very  much  as  Loyola  and  his  two  companions 
had  done  at  Vicenza;  they  preached  in  the  public  squares, 
they  taught  children  and  the  uneducated,  they  frequented 
hospitals,  they  tended  the  sick,  they  comforted  the  down¬ 
hearted,  “in  a  word,  they  neglected  nothing  which  they 
thought  might  conduce  to  the  glory  of  God  and  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  their  neighbor.”  But  to  return  to  Loyola.  It 
was  his  habit,  on  the  way  to  Rome,  to  partake  of  the 
eucharist  daily,  in  preparation  for  the  office  of  priest,  and 
to  pray  in  particular  to  the  Madonna.  I  am  coming  to 
what  he  regarded,  I  think,  as  the  most  important  episode  in 
his  life,  and  I  had  better  introduce  it  with  his  own  words. 

In  his  Memoirs  he  always  speaks  of  himself  in  the  third 
person,  usually  as  the  Pilgrim,  II  Pelegrino,  for  he  dictated 
in  Italian:  “After  he  had  been  made  priest,  he  had  decided 
to  pass  a  whole  year  before  saying  mass,  giving  himself  up 
to  preparation  and  to  prayers  to  the  Madonna  that  she 
would  set  him  with  her  Son.”  As  the  episode  to  which  this 
preparation  is  leading  up  is  important,  and  Loyola  has 


186 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


expressed  himself  so  simply,  I  will  quote  also  Father  Riba- 
deneira,  his  secretary  and  biographer,  who  expands  his  brief 
sentences,  and  I  do  so  the  more  readily  as  this  quotation 
will  indicate  the  way  in  which  the  biographical  style  of  the 
Jesuits  was  tending: 

After  the  Blessed  Father  had  been  raised  to  the  sacerdotal 
dignity,  as  he  knew  full  well  what  sanctity  it  requires,  he 
took  a  whole  year,  virtually  in  solitude,  to  prepare  himself 
to  take  in  his  hands  the  sacred  body  of  Christ  Our  Lord,  and 
to  offer  it  as  a  living  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  men.  He 
thought  he  should  spend  at  least  that  length  of  time  in  pre¬ 
paring  himself  for  his  first  mass.  In  fact  the  accomplish¬ 
ment  was  still  later  than  he  anticipated,  for  he  did  not  have 
that  happiness  until  Christmas  Eve  in  the  year  1538,  at 
Rome,  in  the  chapel  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore,  where  the 
Saviour’s  manger  is  kept.  That  was  a  year  and  a  half  after 
his  ordination.  During  this  time  he  gave  himself  up  day 
and  night  with  extreme  ardor  to  the  contemplation  of 
things  divine,  humbly  praying  the  Glorious  Virgin,  Mother 
of  God,  to  place  him  near  her  Son,  and  give  him  means  of 
approach  to  Him,  for  she  is  both  the  door  of  heaven  and  the 
mediatrix  between  Jesus  and  mankind.  By  favor  of  her 
protection  he  hoped  to  be  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  divine 
Child,  and  also  to  know  Him,  speak  to  Him,  and  worship 
Him  with  tender  respect.  Wonderful  were  the  divine  favors 
that  he  had  received  at  Venice,  Vicenza,  and  other  cities, 
and  on  the  highroad,  so  that  he  thought  himself  to  have 
gone  back  to  the  time  of  abundant  consolations  that  had 
blessed  him  at  Manresa. 

After  such  preparation,  and  with  such  thoughts  ever  pres¬ 
ent  to  his  mind,  and  heavenly  habitants  hovering,  as  it  were, 
near  his  head,  Ignatius  and  his  two  companions,  stopped 
at  a  village,  Storta,  a  few  miles  before  reaching  Rome,  on 
the  road  from  Siena.  There  they  went  into  a  little  chapel  to 
pray.  And  as  he  prayed  he  felt  a  sort  of  transfiguration  of 
his  soul,  and  he  beheld  God  the  Father,  and  God  the  Son 
with  His  heavy  cross.  The  Father,  turning  to  the  Son, 


FROM  VENICE  TO  ROME 


187 


tenderly  commended  Ignatius  and  his  companions,  to  His 
care,  and  Jesus  welcomed  them,  and  said  to  Ignatius  with  a 
loving  look:  Ego  vobis  Romce  propitius  ero  (I  will  be  a 
friend  to  you  in  Rome).  And  having  finished  his  prayers, 
Loyola,  all  joy,  said  to  Lefevre  and  Lainez:  “My  brothers, 
I  do  not  know  what  God  wishes  of  us,  whether  we  shall  die 
on  the  cross  or  under  torture;  but  of  this  I  am  sure,  come 
what  may,  Jesus  will  stand  our  friend.”  And  he  recounted 
to  them  what  he  had  seen  and  heard.  This  vision  con¬ 
tributed  not  a  little  to  confirm  them  in  the  choice  of  name, 
Company  of  Jesus,  which  they  finally  adopted  when  the 
Company  was  formally  founded.  This  name  also  avoided 
the  offense  to  his  humility  caused  by  people  here  and  there 
who  fell  into  the  way  of  calling  his  companions  Ignatians, 
or  The  Company  of  Ignatius,  or  by  some  such  phrase.  He 
used  to  declare  afterwards,  that,  even  if  the  brethren  had 
opposed  the  name  instead  of  joyfully  acclaiming  it,  he 
would  have  insisted,  he  was  so  sure  that  it  was  God’s  wish, 
and  he  informed  all  who  joined  them  that  they  were  enter¬ 
ing  the  Company  and  service  of  Jesus  Christ,  enlisting  under 
the  banner  of  that  great  Captain,  and  must  carry  His  cross, 
and  fix  their  eyes  on  Him. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


TRIBULATIONS  (1538) 

But  in  spite  of  the  promise  of  divine  support,  the  way 
was  not  smooth,  and  Loyola  foresaw  that  it  would  not  be. 
When  they  got  to  Rome  he  said:  “I  see  that  the  windows 
have  their  shutters  up.”  The  great  affair  that  lay  before 
them  was  the  foundation  of  the  Order;  but  first  I  will  give 
some  account  of  how  Loyola  and  his  brethren  employed 
their  time,  and  then  of  the  accusations  cast  up  at  them  and 
of  their  deliverance  and  triumph,  and  after  that  I  shall  re¬ 
turn  to  the  story  of  the  foundation. 

It  seems  that  Loyola  must  have  been  preceded  or  ac¬ 
companied  by  a  reputation  highly  to  his  credit,  for  very  soon 
he  was  sufficiently  familiar  with  several  men  of  consequence 
to  lay  before  them  the  Spiritual  Exercises.  Chief  of  these 
was  Cardinal  Contarini,  a  man  of  saintly  life,  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  reformation  within  the  Church,  and  a  relation 
of  the  Contarini  who  had  already  become  Loyola’s  friend; 
he  used  to  go  about  saying  that  he  found  Father  Ignatius  a 
most  sympathetic  teacher,  and  wrote  out  a  copy  of  the 
Spiritual  Exercises  with  his  own  hand.  Dr.  Ortiz  went 
further.  In  order  to  be  able  to  practise  the  exercises  apart 
from  the  interruptions  of  business  and  friendship,  he  took 
Loyola  to  Monte  Cassino,  stayed  there  forty  days,  and  fol¬ 
lowed  the  whole  course  of  spiritual  instruction.  So  keenly 
did  he  feel,  as  he  says,  “What  a  difference  there  is  between 
the  study  that  prepares  us  to  instruct  others  and  that  which 
teaches  us  to  guide  ourselves!”  All  his  life  he  remained 
a  firm  friend  of  the  Society,  and  even,  it  is  said,  felt  a  strong 
inclination  to  join  it,  but  corpulency  rendered  him  unable 
to  perform  the  physical  duties  imposed  by  the  rules,  and 
probably  the  world  had  too  many  just  claims  upon  him  to 
permit  him  to  abandon  it.  While  at  Monte  Cassino  a 

188 


TRIBULATIONS 


189 


vision  appeared  to  Loyola,  which,  had  it  not  been  explicitly 
referred  to  in  his  own  Memoirs,  one  would  be  inclined  to 
look  upon  as  a  sort  of  pious  repetition,  or  echo,  created  out 
of  the  imagination  by  credulous  disciples,  of  a  very  similar 
vision  that  had  been  vouchsafed  to  St.  Benedict,  when  he 
was  at  Monte  Cassino,  a  thousand  years  before.  “I  saw,” 
Loyola  says,  “the  Bachelor  Hoces  enter  into  Heaven;  I  wept 
but  felt  great  comfort  of  spirit;  and  I  beheld  this  so  vividly 
that  to  deny  it,  would  be  a  downright  lie.”  Ignatius  had 
known  that  Hoces  was  ill  at  Padua,  and  had  expected  him 
to  die,  but  the  vision  is  said  to  have  taken  place  at  the  very 
hour  of  his  death. 

Already  before  Loyola  went  to  Monte  Cassino,  Paul  III, 
who  was  trying  to  set  on  its  feet  the  college  of  La  Sapienza, 
which  had  been  wrecked  in  the  sack  of  Rome,  had  appointed 
Lefevre  to  teach  sacred  scripture  there,  and  Lainez  to  teach 
scholastic  theology;  and  after  the  other  brothers  joined  them 
in  the  spring  of  1538,  all  laid  out  their  work  with  greater 
regard  to  a  common  purpose.  They  all  lived  together  in  a 
house,  which  had  been  lent  them,  near  Santa  Trinita  dei 
Monti,  begged  food  and  what  else  they  needed,  and  preached 
in  various  churches  throughout  the  city.  Ignatius  preached 
in  the  Spanish  language  at  Santa  Maria  of  Montserrat,  the 
national  Spanish  church,  near  the  Palazzo  Farnese;  Jay,  in 
French  I  surmise,  at  San  Lodovico,  the  French  church  next 
to  Palazzo  Madama,  where  the  Emperor’s  daughter,  Marga¬ 
ret  of  Parma,  was  living;  Lefevre  in  San  Lorenzo  in 
Damaso,  a  church  appurtenant  to  the  palace  now  known  as 
the  Cancelleria,  while  Lainez,  Rodriguez,  Salmeron  and 
Bobadilla,  preached  elsewhere,  all  five  in  Italian.  Part  of 
the  good  that  preaching  in  Italian  accomplished,  as  they 
themselves  perceived,  was  their  own  mortification,  por 
mortificacion  del  predicador;  afterwards,  when  they  had 
better  mastered  the  language,  they  did  good  to  the  congre¬ 
gation,  and  even  in  the  earlier  days,  as  they  thought,  they 
planted  seeds  of  spiritual  fruit,  and  at  any  rate  made  them¬ 
selves  known  and  talked  about.  Schoolmasters  took  their 
pupils  to  hear  them,  and  many  persons  came  to  confession 
and  communion.  Ignatius  must  have  been  a  remarkable 


190 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


preacher.  Sincerity  and  passionate  love  of  souls  are  the 
parents  of  true  eloquence.  Dr.  Ortiz  considered  himself 
fortunate  not  to  have  missed  any  of  his  sermons;  and  an¬ 
other  theologian,  Dr.  Arce,  used  to  say  that  he  had  never 
heard  so  virile  a  preacher,  for  he  spoke  as  one  that  had 
authority  and  not  as  the  scribes. 

Besides  preaching,  the  practical  labors  of  charity  were  the 
especial  care  of  the  brethren.  It  was  just  ten  years  since  the 
terrible  sack  of  Rome,  and  in  consequence  the  rich  still 
suffered  discomforts,  and  the  poor  privations.  The  biog¬ 
raphers  speak  in  particular  of  Loyola’s  tireless  activity  in 
matters  of  charity;  to  this  I  shall  return  in  a  later  chapter. 
By  his  influence  a  certain  rich  man  contributed  generously 
to  the  Jesuit  charities,  and  also  to  the  needs  of  the  little 
band  of  Fathers,  so  that  they  were  released  from  the  burden 
of  begging  alms  for  themselves  and  left  free  to  attend  to 
higher  things;  and,  later  on,  this  same  generous  friend  by 
his  labors  more  than  by  his  purse  enabled  them  to  procure 
a  church  of  their  own,  and  to  build  a  house  on  the  site  where 
the  church  of  the  Gesu  now  stands.  In  the  meantime  the 
Fathers  had  moved  from  the  neighborhood  of  Santa  Trinita 
dei  Monti,  and  lodged  in  an  ampler  house  near  a  tower,  Torre 
de  la  Melangola,  bordering  upon  the  ground  once  covered 
by  the  Circus  Flaminius.  The  need  of  charity  was  doubled 
by  a  great  famine  in  the  land,  and  many  poor  people,  ac¬ 
cording  to  report,  were  found  dead  of  hunger  and  cold  in 
the  streets.  The  Fathers  converted  their  new  building  into 
a  sort  of  charitable  lodging-house,  and  took  in  the  destitute. 
Soon  the  number  cared  for  reached  a  hundred,  then  two, 
three,  and  even  four  hundred.  These  poor  people  were 
housed  and  kept  warm,  the  feebler  had  what  beds  there 
were,  while  the  more  robust  slept  on  straw.  As  many  as 
could  be  were  fed,  and  all  were  preached  to  and  prayed  over. 
This  work  was  noised  abroad,  and  well  to  do  citizens  came 
to  see  how  they  could  help,  and  some  if  they  had  nothing 
else  to  spare,  gave  their  coats  and  cloaks.  Even  alms  in¬ 
tended  for  the  Fathers  were  spent  in  charity.  This  state  of 
affairs  lasted  till  the  next  year’s  harvest.  In  all  more  than 
3000  persons  were  taken  in  and  looked  after.  Besides  their 


TRIBULATIONS 


191 


care  of  this  household,  the  Fathers,  and  also  some  new 
comers  who  joined  them,  went  about  the  hospitals  and  pri¬ 
vate  houses,  ministering  both  to  body  and  soul.  I  shall 
return  to  the  matter  of  Loyola’s  practical  philanthropy 
hereafter;  but  it  is  impossible  to  touch  upon  these  two  years 
prior  to  the  granting  of  the  charter  without  saying  a  word 
as  to  the  faithful,  laborious,  and  self-sacrificing  devotion 
shown  by  Ignatius  and  his  Companions  to  the  sick  and 
destitute.  At  the  same  time  one  must  remember  that  to 
Loyola,  men’s  bodies  were  mere  temporary  houses  of  clay, 
but  their  souls  the  everlasting  temples  of  God’s  holy  spirit. 
Loyola  himself  was  always  mindful  of  the  benefits  received 
by  those  who  serve  others;  the  more  his  zeal  to  serve  souls, 
the  closer  he  came  to  God,  as  he  says,  sempre  crescendo  in 
devotione,  id  est,  in  facilita  di  trovare  Iddio.  With  this,  I 
leave  the  aspect  of  his  work  as  a  practical  philanthropist, 
and  go  back  to  the  ill  wind  of  misunderstanding,  dislike  and 
jealousy,  that  blew  about  his  head.  Father  Polanco  begins 
his  account  of  it,  “Cum  Satanas,  .  .  ”  but  I  shall  start  a 
little  differently. 

The  storm  arose  in  this  fashion.  An  Augustinian  monk, 
from  Piedmont,  a  great  preacher,  who  was  at  that  time 
preaching  in  Rome,  seemed  to  the  Jesuits  to  be  larding  his 
sermons  with  Lutheran  doctrines;  thereupon,  they  did  what 
they  believed  to  be  their  duty,  by  unmasking  him  from  their 
pulpits  and  refuting  his  teachings.  For  some  reason  or 
other,  that  we  can  but  guess  at,  certain  Spaniards,  con¬ 
nected  with  the  papal  curia,  espoused  the  monk’s  side,  and 
spread  evil  reports  about  the  Jesuits;  and  they  also  got  hold 
of  a  rascally  Spaniard,  Michael  by  name,  who  had  known 
Ignatius  and  the  others  in  Paris.  This  Michael  had  wished 
to  join  their  Society,  but  as  he  did  not  seem  a  suitable  per¬ 
son,  he  wras  refused.  Encouraged,  apparently,  by  the 
friends  of  the  monk,  he  went  about  saying  publicly  that 
Ignatius  had  been  condemned  as  a  heretic  in  Spain,  in 
Paris  and  in  Venice,  and  implied,  if  he  did  not  say,  that 
they  were  all  runaways  and  had  been  obliged  to  take  refuge 
in  Italy,  and  he  also  did  what  he  could  to  bring  the  Spiritual 
Exercises  into  bad  odor.  People  began  to  look  askance  at 


192 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


the  Jesuits,  and  reports  of  these  alleged  exposures  were 
carried  back  to  various  cities  and  places  where  Ignatius  had 
preached. 

Ignatius  acted  as  he  always  did  under  false  accusations: 
he  insisted  upon  publicity,  a  full  investigation  of  the  facts, 
and  an  official  adjudication  of  his  innocence.  In  this  case 
the  charges  were  laid  before  the  Governor  of  the  city  as 
judge.  The  fellow  Michael  appeared  as  complainant,  and 
repeated  under  oath  the  slanders  he  had  been  spreading 
abroad.  The  cross-examination,  if  I  may  call  it  so,  was 
decisive.  Ignatius  produced  the  following  letter  written  to 
him  by  Michael  within  the  year.  I  quote  it  at  length  be¬ 
cause  this  accusation  is  the  first  of  a  long  series  brought 
against  the  Jesuits  by  those  out  of  sympathy  with  them, 
and  the  ready  refutation  thereof  when  investigated,  though 
it  had  begun  to  spread  infection,  points  a  moral;  and  also 
because  it  throws  light  upon  the  volatile  character  of  many 
of  the  people  with  whom  Loyola  had  to  deal,  people  who 
were  afraid  of  hell,  but  with  no  courage  to  bear  the  hard¬ 
ships  on  the  path  of  virtue. 

To  Father  Ignatius  de  Loyola 

Venice,  Sept.  12,  1537. 

May  God  of  His  infinite  mercy  keep  you  and  hold  you 
in  His  hand.  Amen. 

I  left  your  habitation  with  the  intention  of  returning 
within  a  few  days,  or  at  least  to  write  you  fully  of  how 
things  went  with  me,  and  I  think  I  gave  you  my  promise. 
My  promises  have  been,  not  only  now  but  all  my  life,  poorly 
truthful;  to  this  I  bear  truthful  witness,  for  every  day  I  do 
sorry  things,  starting  out  with  high  purposes  and  coming 
back  with  failure.  May  it  please  God  to  give  me  grace  and 
strength  to  do  battle  for  His  glory  and  my  salvation  against 
those  fierce  beasts  that  hold  me  in  their  clutches,  I  mean 
the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil. 

The  day  I  left  you  I  dined  with  Master  Arias,  who  greeted 
me  with  joyful  looks,  as  I  thought.  Before  dinner,  and 
while  we  were  at  table,  and  afterwards,  he  inquired  of  me 


TRIBULATIONS 


193 


with  solicitude  and  particularity,  about  each  one  of  you,  and 
how  you  are,  and  what  was  said  of  him. 

As  to  the  first  question  I  told  him  all  I  knew.  As  to  the 
second,  I  answered  that  I  was  very  much  surprised  that  a 
man  of  his  discretion  and  experience,  who  got  at  the 
marrow  of  things,  hidden  or  not,  should  suspect  that  the 
companions  would  speak  ill,  or  say  anything  they  should 
not,  of  anybody,  or  give  any  information  that  was  not  true; 
for  it  was  well  known  that  their  way  of  life  was  very  pious 
and  very  close  to  the  apostolic  life, — without  any  false  touch 
of  the  illumined,  those  pretended  servants  of  God,  but  really 
servants  of  Satan — and  that  he  well  knew  the  companions 
worked  hard  to  bring  back  to  the  right  road  those  who  had 
strayed,  and  in  return  for  the  good  they  did  received  evil. 

To  which  he  answered:  “I  do  not  think  that  they  speak 
ill  of  me  or  of  anybody  else ;  I  want  to  know  what  they  say 
of  my  leaving  them.”  I  answered:  “When  I  asked  them 
about  you,  they  answered  my  questions,  and  told  me  what 
had  happened.  I  was  bewildered  by  it,  and  I  am  bewildered 
still.  Suppose  a  student  at  the  Sorbonne,  who  had  passed 
his  examinations,  should  invite  all  the  doctors  of  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Paris,  and  the  Rector,  to  go  to  Notre-Dame  in 
order  for  him  to  take  his  degree;  and  then  when  they  were 
all  there,  should  say  T  have  decided  not  to  take  it’  and  that 
they  might  go  home;  they  would  all  think  him  under- 
witted.  Such  a  matter  should  be  more  carefully  considered 
in  the  beginning.”  I  told  him,  I  felt  badly,  just  as  if  he 
were  my  brother,  over  what  would  be  said  of  him,  whether 
he  was  in  Italy,  or  Spain,  or  any  other  part  of  the  world; 
both  his  friends  and  those  who  were  not  his  friends  would 
know  all  about  it.  “What  you  should  do  (I  said),  is  to  go 
back  to  them;  or,  let  us  both  go  to  a  hermitage.”  He 
answered:  “What  do  I  care  what  they  say  about  me? 

How  do  they  know  whether  or  not  I  have  given  my  money 
to  the  poor,  or  have  got  absolution  from  Rome?” 

We  talked  about  this  and  other  things  until  it  was  time 
for  me  to  get  aboard  ship;  he  went  with  me  to  the  dock,  and 
said  we  should  see  one  another  within  three  days  in  Venice. 
Three  days  have  gone  by  and  I  have  not  seen  him.  The 


194 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


report  that  he  has  gone  to  Rome  may  be  true.  I  do  not 
know  whether  it  is  or  not. 

One  day,  walking  through  the  piazza  of  San  Marco,  I 
met  a  woman  from  Padua,  who  had  been  his  landlady;  she 
recognized  me  and  asked  me  about  Master  Arias,  her  saint. 
I  asked  her  what  reason  she  had  for  asking  me.  She  said: 
I  left  my  house  in  his  hands,  just  as  if  he  had  been  my  hus¬ 
band.  [I  need  not  continue  this  episode,  the  object  of 
which  seems  to  be  to  show  that  Master  Arias  was  one  of  the 
vicious  illuminati,  and  to  throw  on  him  the  blame  of 
Michael's  backsliding.]  .  .  . 

I  mean  to  make  an  effort  to  find  out  where  he  is,  and  if 
I  do,  I  will  have  him  up  before  the  Pope.  ...  I  mean  to 
get  even  with  him  for  what  he  did  to  me  on  the  way  to  Rome 
and  add  something  more,  for  he  is  responsible  for  taking  me 
away  from  you,  and  in  taking  me  from  you  he  took  me  away 
from  the  service  of  God. 

As  for  me  I  have  no  peace  unless  I  study;  and  as  I  see  I 
shall  get  no  aid  from  men,  I  trust  myself  to  God,  and  I  am 
going  to  leave  Venice  this  week  to  seek  whatever  may  come. 
I  am  always  fixed  in  my  determination  to  return  and  serve 
God;  but,  unless  I  study,  I  shall  not  be  able  to  serve  God  as 
I  wish  to  serve  Him.  Always,  whatever  He  may  wish  me 
to  do,  I  offer  myself  to  you ;  and  some  day,  by  means  of  your 
prayers  and  those  of  my  brethren,  I  hope  that  He  will  have 
mercy  and  enlighten  my  understanding,  if  in  coming  to  this 
decision  it  is  blind. 

If  you  will  write  me,  it  will  comfort  me  very  much  and 
I  shall  be  deeply  obliged.  Be  it  as  God  may  prompt  you. 
Please  remember  me  to  my  brethren  in  Christ. 

He  that  wishes  to  be  remembered  in  your  prayers,  the 
least  of  all, 

Yours, 

Michael. 

The  prosecution  threw  up  the  case;  Michael  was  con¬ 
demned  as  a  slanderer,  fined,  and  banished.  So  far,  so 
good;  but  Ignatius  demanded  that  the  Spaniards  of  conse¬ 
quence  who  had  backed  Michael  should  come  into  court  and 


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proffer  their  charges.  They,  however,  were  cautious  and 
endeavored  to  avoid  the  issue;  they  had  been  mistaken 
(they  said),  they  entertained  a  high  opinion  of  Ignatius  and 
his  associates,  they  admired  their  mode  of  life,  their  teach¬ 
ing  and  their  charitable  actions.  In  this  way  they  hoped  to 
slink  out  and  leave  the  cause  with  an  impotent  conclusion  ; 
and  to  this  end  they  used  what  influence  they  had.  They 
went  to  the  papal  legate,  Gian  Vincenzo  Caraffa  and  ac¬ 
knowledged  their  mistake;  and  he  supported  their  attempt 
to  suppress  the  matter  quietly.  The  Governor  took  the 
same  position,  and  various  prelates  also;  even  Loyola’s 
companions  thought  it  would  be  wiser  not  to  press  the  suit 
in  court.  But  they  had  the  wrong  sow  by  the  ear.  Ignatius 
insisted.  The  case  had  been  brought  into  court,  and  the 
court  must  render  judgment.  The  judge  refused  to  act. 
Ignatius  went  to  the  Pope,  laid  before  him  a  full  account  of 
his  whole  life,  his  doings  and  his  purposes,  the  opposition  he 
had  received,  his  imprisonments  and  so  forth,  and  besought 
him,  for  the  sake  of  his  companions  and  himself,  to  com¬ 
mand  the  judge  to  give  judgment.  The  Pope  did  so.  And 
by  a  very  singular  coincidence,  all  the  men  who  had  been 
judges  in  the  divers  accusations  and  complaints  brought 
against  Loyola,  were  all  present  in  Rome  at  that  very  time, 
and  all  appeared  and  deposed  their  evidence  before  the 
Judge  had  concluded.  There  was  Dr.  Figueroa,  the  Vicar 
General  at  Alcala,  on  his  way  back  from  Naples  where  he 
had  been  upon  an  important  mission  on  behalf  of  the  Em¬ 
peror;  there  was  Dr.  Matthew  Ori,  the  French  inquisitor, 
before  whom  Loyola  had  twice  been  hauled  in  Paris;  there 
was  Dr.  Gaspar  de  Doctis,  vicar  of  the  Apostolic  Nuncio, 
who  had  had  cognizance  of  the  charges  laid  against  Ignatius 
in  Venice.  Other  testimonies  from  various  places  where 
the  companions  had  been, — Venice,  Vicenza,  Bologna, 
Ferrara  and  Siena — were  introduced  in  evidence.  Very  re¬ 
spectable  gentlemen  of  Rome  also  testified  in  their  favor. 
The  Governor,  therefore,  in  his  decision,  November  18,  1538, 
condemned  the  detractors  of  the  Company,  and  not  only 
acquitted  Loyola  but  also  praised  his  life,  his  teaching,  and 
good  works,  and,  by  express  mention,  the  Spiritual  Exercises. 


196 


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In  spite  of  some  repetition  I  will  quote  from  a  letter  of 
Loyola's,  in  which  he  tells  the  whole  story: 

To  Isabel  Roser 

Rome,  December  19,  1538. 

May  the  grace  and  the  love  of  Christ  always  bless  and 
keep  you. 

I  can  well  understand  that  you  are  anxious,  and  not  less 
amazed,  because  I  have  not  written  to  you  as  often  as  I 
wanted  to;  indeed,  if  I  were  to  forget  the  great  deal  that  I 
owe  to  God,  for  what  your  hands  have  given  me  with  such 
loving  good  will,  I  think  that  His  divine  Majesty  would  not 
remember  me,  since  you,  out  of  love  and  reverence  for  Him, 
have  always  done  so  much  for  me.  The  excuse  for  my 
delay  in  writing  has  been  because  we  have  been  constantly 
hoping  to  despatch  a  certain  affair  here  from  day  to  day,  or 
rather  from  month  to  month,  and  to  be  able  to  tell  you 
definitely  about  our  situation.  The  affair  is  so  serious,  that 
in  all  our  lives  we  have  never  passed  through  such  rough 
maltreatment  as  during  these  last  eight  months.  I  don't 
mean  that  they  have  laid  hands  on  us,  or  arrested  us,  or 
anything  like  that ;  but  a  report  has  gone  round  among  the 
people,  suggesting  things  they  had  never  heard  of,  and 
roused  suspicion  and  offensive  gossip;  so  we  felt  obliged  on 
account  of  the  scandal  to  go  before  the  Legate,  Cardinal 
Vincenzo  Caraffa,  and  the  Governor  of  the  City,  the  Vice- 
Chamberlain,  Benedict  Conversinus  (for  the  Pope  had  gone 
to  Nice),  and  we  summoned  the  persons  who  had  spoken 
insolently  against  us  to  lay  before  our  superiors  whatever 
evil  they  had  found  in  our  lives  and  in  our  teaching.  I  will 
tell  the  whole  story  from  the  beginning  so  that  you  shall 
understand  it. 

More  than  a  year  ago,  three  of  us  (Lefevre,  Lainez  and  I,) 
came  to  Rome,  as  I  remember  I  wrote  you.  The  other  two 
began  to  teach  gratis  in  the  academy  of  the  Sapienza  one 
positive  theology,  the  other  scholastic  theology,  by  the 
Pope’s  orders;  while  I  devoted  myself  to  imparting  my 
Spiritual  Exercises  both  in  the  city  and  out.  This  we  ar- 


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197 


ranged  in  order  to  have  some  educated  people,  men  of 
consequence  on  our  side  (or  rather,  on  the  side  of  the  honor 
of  God,  for  all  our  concern  is  to  serve  and  praise  His  divine 
Majesty,)  so  that  we  should  not  meet  so  much  opposition 
among  people  in  general,  and  that  we  might  afterwards 
preach  His  holy  word  freely, — for  the  earth  here,  so  dry  of 
good  fruit,  reeks  from  its  abundance  of  evil  fruits.  By 
this  method  of  procedure  (God  helping),  we  won  over  some 
persons  to  our  side,  persons  of  education  and  good  repute, 
and  four  months  after  our  arrival,  we  decided  to  have  all 
our  band  together  in  Rome.  As  soon  as  the  members  came, 
we  applied  for  license  to  preach,  to  exhort,  and  to  hear  con¬ 
fession;  the  Legate  granted  this  very  fully,  although  people 
told  many  false  things  about  us  to  the  Legate’s  Vicar,  and 
delayed  the  issuance  of  the  license.  After  we  had  got  it, 
four  or  five  of  us  began  to  preach  in  various  churches  on 
Sundays  and  feast  days,  and  we  also  expounded  to  boys  the 
Ten  Commandments,  the  mortal  sins,  etc.;  the  courses  at 
the  Sapienza  and  hearing  confessions  going  on  all  the  while. 
I  preached  in  Spanish,  all  the  others  in  Italian.  There  was 
always  a  good  congregation  at  the  sermons,  ever  so  many 
more  than  we  expected.  We  thought  there  would  be  few 
for  three  reasons:  First,  it  was  an  unusual  time  for  preach¬ 
ing,  because  we  began  after  Easter,  after  the  other 
preachers,  who  preached  in  lent  and  on  the  great  feast  days, 
had  stopped.  In  this  country  it  is  the  custom  to  preach 
only  in  lent  and  advent.  Second,  after  the  sermons  and 
privations  of  lent,  many  people,  for  our  sins,  incline  more  to 
diversions  and  pleasures  than  to  a  new  set  of  devotional 
exercises.  Third,  because  we  do  not  make  any  account  of 
elegance  and  an  accomplished  manner  in  what  we  do,  but 
in  spite  of  that  we  do  make  account  of  this, — relying  on  our 
experience, — that  God,  in  His  infinite  goodness,  shall  not 
forget  us,  but  through  us,  who  are  of  no  account,  shall  help 
many  other  people. 

After  we  had  come  before  the  court,  and  two  men  had 
been  summoned,  and  one  of  them  had  got  from  the  judges 
very  much  the  opposite  of  what  he  had  expected  to  get,  the 
others  against  whom  we  had  made  application  for  a  sum- 


198 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


mons,  became  so  fearful  that  they  neither  wanted  nor 
dared  to  appear,  but  kept  putting  hindrances  in  our  way  to 
prevent  our  going  on  with  the  case.  And  as  some  of  them 
were  men  of  large  incomes,  six  hundred  ducats  or  a  thou¬ 
sand,  and  some  with  influence,  all  men  of  affairs  connected 
with  the  curia,  they  twisted  the  cardinals  about,  and  other 
personages  of  position  in  the  papal  court,  and  made  us 
spend  much  time  in  carrying  on  the  fight. 

At  last,  however,  the  chief  men  among  them,  were  sum¬ 
moned  and  appeared  before  the  Legate  and  the  Governor, 
and  said  that  they  had  heard  our  sermons  and  teachings  and 
so  forth,  and  found  nothing  at  all  to  take  exception  to  either 
in  our  doctrines  or  our  conduct.  At  that  the  Legate  and 
the  Governor,  expressing  a  high  opinion  of  us,  advised  that 
the  matter  be  hushed  up,  both  as  to  these  defendants  and 
others.  But  we  asked  repeatedly,  as  we  thought  it  but 
justice,  that  there  should  be  a  written  decision  concerning 
our  doctrine,  whether  it  was  evil  or  good,  so  that  the  people 
should  have  no  cause  for  scandal;  but  this  we  could  not  ob¬ 
tain  from  them,  either  as  a  matter  of  justice  or  law.  From 
this  time  on,  however,  from  fear  of  legal  proceedings,  noth¬ 
ing  was  said  against  us,  at  least  not  in  public.  Then,  as  we 
could  not  succeed  in  getting  a  judgment  or  a  declaration  as 
to  our  matters,  a  friend  of  ours  spoke  to  the  Pope,  when 
he  came  back  from  Nice,  asking  him  to  issue  a  pronounce¬ 
ment  in  the  matter.  The  Pope  agreed,  but  as  nothing  was 
done,  two  of  our  Company  also  spoke  to  him.  And  as  His 
Holiness  went  right  off  again  to  Frascati,  I  followed  him 
there  and  talked  to  him  all  alone  in  his  room  for  about  an 
hour.  I  spoke  at  length  about  our  purposes,  and  gave  a 
clear  account  of  all  the  suits  that  had  been  brought  against 
me  in  Spain  and  in  Paris,  as  well  as  of  how  I  had  been 
locked  up  at  Alcala  and  Salamanca.  I  did  this  so  that  no¬ 
body  should  be  able  to  tell  him  anything  which  I  had  not 
told  him,  and  also  to  persuade  him  to  make  an  investigation 
of  us,  so  that  some  judgment  or  definite  declaration  con¬ 
cerning  our  teaching  should  be  made.  Finally,  as  it  was 
particularly  necessary  for  our  preaching  and  exhortations,  to 
enjoy  good  repute,  before  the  world  as  well  as  before  God, 


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199 


and  to  be  free  from  suspicion  both  as  to  doctrine  and  to  con¬ 
duct,  I  begged  His  Holiness,  in  the  name  of  all  of  us,  to  use 
his  power  and  apply  the  remedy,  and  have  our  doctrines 
and  our  mode  of  life  investigated  by  any  judge  of  ordinary 
jurisdiction  that  he  might  order;  so  that  if  any  wrong  were 
found  we  might  be  corrected  and  punished,  and  if  none,  that 
His  Holiness  would  show  us  his  favor.  The  Pope,  though 
he  had  ground  from  what  I  had  told  him  for  some  suspicion, 
took  it  in  very  good  part,  praised  us  for  putting  our  minds 
to  good  things,  and,  after  he  had  talked  and  encouraged  me 
for  a  time  (and  indeed  his  language  was  that  of  a  good 
shepherd,  no  hireling),  gave  an  express  command  to  the 
Governor,  who  is  a  bishop  and  chief  judge  of  the  city  both 
in  ecclesiastical  and  civil  matters,  to  proceed  at  once  with 
our  case.  In  consequence,  the  Governor  began  afresh  with 
much  expedition;  and  the  Pope  came  back  to  Rome  and 
several  times  spoke  a  good  word  for  us  before  everybody, 
when  our  Company  was  present,  for  every  other  week  they 
go  to  debate  some  question  while  the  Pope  is  at  dinner. 
And  the  consequence  was  that  most  of  the  storm  blew  over, 
and  some  piece  of  luck  has  happened  every  day,  so  that  it 
appears  to  me  that  things  are  going  very  much  as  we  wish 
for  the  service  and  glory  of  God,  and  we  are  much  impor¬ 
tuned  by  some  prelates  and  others  (by  God’s  help)  to  sow 
the  seed  of  good  fruits  in  this  part  of  the  world ;  but  we  are 
waiting  for  a  more  appropriate  opportunity. 

Now  it  has  pleased  God  that  our  case  has  been  adjudged. 
And  at  this  juncture  a  very  surprising  episode  occurred.  It 
had  been  said  of  us  that  we  had  run  away  from  various 
countries,  and  in  particular  from  Paris,  from  Spain,  from 
Venice;  and  now  just  when  the  court  was  about  to  give 
judgment,  there  turned  up,  here  in  Rome,  just  arrived,  the 
regent  Figueroa,  who  had  arrested  me  in  Alcala,  and  insti¬ 
tuted  two  proceedings  against  me,  and  the  Vicar  General  of 
the  papal  legate  at  Venice  who  had  also  started  proceedings 
against  me  at  the  time  when  we  began  to  preach  in  Venice, 
and  Dr.  Ori,  who  likewise  had  taken  proceedings  against  me 
in  Paris,  and  the  bishop  of  Vicenza,  where  four  of  us 
preached  for  a  time;  and  so  all  these  testified  in  our  favor. 


200 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Besides,  in  like  manner,  the  cities  of  Siena,  Bologna  and 
Ferrara  sent  certified  evidence,  and  the  duke  of  Ferrara, 
in  addition  to  sending  evidence  (taking  to  heart  the  disre¬ 
spect  shown  to  God  in  this  treatment  of  us)  wrote  at  various 
times  to  his  ambassador  and  to  our  Society  making  our 
cause  his  own,  because  he  had  seen  what  had  been  accom¬ 
plished  in  Ferrara  and  also  in  the  other  cities  where  we  had 
been. 

For  this  we  render  thanks  to  God,  because,  from  the 
time  we  began  to  the  present,  we  have  never  failed  to  give 
two  or  three  sermons  on  every  feast  day,  and  two  lessons 
every  day,  and  some  have  been  always  busy  with  hearing 
confession  and  some  in  giving  the  Spiritual  Exercises.  Now 
that  judgment  has  been  pronounced  we  hope  to  deliver  more 
sermons  and  to  do  more  teaching  among  boys.  And,  seeing 
that  the  soil  is  dry  and  sterile,  and  that  we  have  met  great 
opposition,  we  cannot  say  truthfully  that  we  have  lacked 
something  to  do,  and  that  God  has  not  wrought  more 
than  our  knowledge  and  intelligence  of  themselves  could 
accomplish. 

In  order  not  to  exceed  all  bounds,  I  will  not  specify  more 
details;  on  the  whole  God  has  made  us  very  well  satisfied. 
I  will  only  say  that  there  are  four  or  five  who  have  made  up 
their  minds  to  enter  our  Society,  and  have  persevered  in 
their  purpose  for  many  months;  but  we  do  not  dare  admit 
them,  because  one  of  the  points  they  made  against  us  is  that 
we  took  in  members  and  were  making  a  congregation,  or  re¬ 
ligious  order,  without  apostolic  authority.  As  it  is  now,  al¬ 
though  we  are  not  all  agreed  as  to  what  course  to  pursue, 
we  are  all  of  one  mind  that  we  should  come  to  some  definite 
plan  for  the  future;  and  we  hope  that  God  will  so  dispose 
this  to  His  best  service  and  praise. 

Now  that  you  have  heard  how  our  affairs  stand,  for  the 
love  and  worship  of  God  I  beseech  you,  that  we  may  all 
have  great  patience,  desiring  that  He  may  work  in  us  what¬ 
ever  may  be  most  to  His  praise  and  glory;  for  matters  are 
just  now  in  a  critical  state.  I  shall  keep  you  informed  very 
often  of  what  happens;  for  I  say,  if  I  forget  you,  I  feel 
that  I  shall  be  forgotten  by  my  Lord  and  Master.  However, 


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201 


I  care  little  to  express  my  thanks  in  words,  but  of  this  be 
sure  that, — apart  from  the  fact  that  all  you  have  done  for 
me  out  of  a  love  and  worship  of  God  lives  in  His  presence — 
in  whatever  His  divine  Majesty  shall  do  through  me,  making 
it  meritorious  by  His  divine  grace,  you  shall  be  a  sharer  so 
long  as  I  live,  since  you  have  always  given  me  great  help 
in  serving  and  praising  Him.  Please  commend  me  to  all 
our  friends  and  acquaintances,  who  are  of  a  religious  life 
and  at  one  in  Christ. 

I  end  my  letter,  with  a  prayer  to  God  that  of  His  infinite 
goodness  He  will  give  us  grace  to  perceive  His  holy  will  and 
to  perform  it. 


De  bondad  pobre, 


Inigo. 


P.  S.  As  I  write  this,  the  Pope  has  directed  the  Governor 
to  see  that  orders  are  issued  for  the  city  that  the  boys’ 
schools  shall  be  united,  and  that  we  shall  give  them  instruc¬ 
tions  in  Christian  doctrine,  as  we  had  begun  to  do  before  all 
this  trouble.  May  it  please  God,  since  it  is  His  affair,  to 
give  us  strength  for  greater  service  and  praise. 


CHAPTER  XX 


THE  CHARTER  (1538-1540) 

We  now  approach  the  culmination  of  nineteen  years  of 
preparation;  but  the  final  act  was  not  achieved  without 
difficulty.  Already  in  the  spring  of  1538  Ignatius  had 
called  his  companions  to  Rome  with  a  view  of  taking  some 
decisive  step.  It  was  first  necessary,  however,  to  clear 
away  all  the  dust  and  smoke  kicked  up  by  the  false  accusers 
before  the  little  group  could  discuss  calmly  and  properly 
the  wisdom  of  forming  a  permanent  organization,  and  de¬ 
cide  upon  its  character  and  constitution.  In  mid-Lent,  1539, 
their  deliberations  began.  At  the  outset  the  Fathers  were 
of  various  minds;  so  they  betook  themselves  to  prayer  and 
offered  masses,  in  order  to  learn  the  will  of  God,  feeling 
great  hope  that  He  would  inspire  them  with  what  would 
best  please  Him  and  most  redound  to  His  honor.  They 
met  every  evening ;  and  each  man  was  to  declare  his  opinion 
in  turn,  giving  his  reasons  point  by  point,  and  the  voices  of 
the  majority  were  to  control.  The  first  question  was, 
should  this  little  band  of  men,  brought  together  as  if  by 
Providence  from  different  countries,  break  up  and  scatter, 
each  to  go  his  several  way,  or  should  they  bind  themselves 
by  some  permanent  bond  of  union?  To  this  there  was  a 
prompt  answer  in  the  affirmative.  The  vows  of  chastity 
and  poverty  were  accepted  as  of  course;  but  should  they 
add  a  third  vow,  that  of  obedience  to  a  superior  to  be  elected 
from  among  them,  as  a  means  to  enable  them  more  fully  to 
do  the  will  of  God  and  of  His  Vicar  on  earth?  This  was 
more  difficult  to  decide;  and  considerable  uncertainty  was 
felt.  Some  appear  to  have  been  fearful  lest  they  might  be 
commanded  to  enter  some  order  already  existing  and  to 
abide  by  its  rule,  and  so  be  diverted  from  what  they  re- 

202 


THE  CHARTER 


203 


garded  as  the  true  way  for  them  to  work  for  the  salvation 
both  of  themselves  and  others.  In  this  perplexity  they 
adhered  very  closely  to  Loyola’s  rules  as  to  an  election,  con¬ 
tained  in  the  Spiritual  Exercises.  They  prayed  God  to  in¬ 
cline  their  hearts  to  go  counter  to  self-love  rather  than  with 
it ;  they  refrained  from  discussing  with  one  another,  leaving 
each  to  reflect  upon  the  question  by  himself,  alone  with 
God;  and  each  endeavored  to  put  himself  in  the  position  of 
an  outsider,  and  as  such  consider  what  advice  he  would  give 
under  these  circumstances  to  other  men  for  the  greater  glory 
of  God.  After  this,  there  was  further  debate  and  delibera¬ 
tion  in  company;  at  last  the  vote  was  put  and  unanimously 
carried.  Other  articles,  concerning  the  novitiate  and  time 
of  probation,  the  establishment  of  colleges,  the  ownership  of 
houses  and  of  churches,  the  nature  of  their  duty  of  obedi¬ 
ence  to  the  Pope,  obedience  to  superiors,  the  teaching  of 
children,  the  election  of  a  general,  and  so  forth,  seem  to  have 
been  readily  agreed  upon.  Loyola  himself,  when  consider¬ 
ing  and  discussing  important  matters,  was  accustomed  to 
receive  what  he  deemed  a  divine  revelation.  Christ  would 
appear  to  him  in  a  vision,  shining  like  the  sun,  and  there¬ 
after  he  had  no  doubt.  He  told  Gonzalez  that  this  often 
happened  to  him  when  deliberating  over  the  constitution  of 
the  Society;  and  he  showed  him  daily  records  in  his  diary, 
in  which  he  had  noted  down  how  visions  came  to  him  in 
confirmation  of  one  or  another  article  in  the  constitution, 
sometimes  a  vision  of  God  the  Father,  sometimes  of  the 
Three  Persons  of  the  Trinity,  or  of  the  Madonna,  either 
interceding  or  approving.  During  his  deliberations,  his 
practice  was  to  say  mass  every  day,  to  pray,  and  lay  the 
particular  matter  under  consideration  before  God;  and 
when  he  celebrated  mass,  or  prayed,  his  eyes  were  wet  with 
tears.  His  was  the  plan  of  the  Company;  his  was  the  will 
and  the  passion  that  brought  it  to  birth.  And  yet,  at  this 
time,  however  he  may  have  behaved  later,  he  was  far  from 
being  an  autocrat;  on  the  contrary,  the  remarkable  fact 
concerning  these  deliberations  and  conclusions,  is  that  they 
are  really  the  work  of  ten  minds  acting  together,  all  in  the 
end  concordant  and  at  one,  not  because  of  the  tyrannical 


204 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


mastery  of  Loyola’s  genius,  but  because  during  long  years 
of  intimacy  his  comrades  had  been  persuaded,  trained,  il¬ 
lumined  and  inspired  by  his  ideas,  and  therefore,  in  spite  of 
their  diverse  capacities  and  dispositions,  they  arrived  at 
one  harmonious  agreement.  Lainez  ascribes  Loyola’s 
powers  of  leadership  to  these  qualities: 

Great  knowledge  of  the  things  of  God,  and  great  devotion 
to  them,  and  the  more  metaphysical  these  matters  were,  and 
over  our  heads,  the  better  he  knew  them;  great  good  sense 
and  prudence  in  matters  of  business;  the  divine  gift  of  dis¬ 
cretion;  great  fortitude  and  magnanimity  in  tribulation; 
great  guilelessness  in  not  judging  others,  and  in  putting  a 
favorable  interpretation  on  all  things;  and  great  skill  in 
knowing  how  to  set  himself  and  others  to  work  for  the  serv¬ 
ice  of  God. 

By  St.  John  the  Baptist’s  day,  June  24,  1539,  all 
matters  had  been  settled,  and  Ignatius  drew  -up  under  five 
heads  a  compendious  statement  of  their  decision,  a  sort  of 
brief  constitution.  Paul  III,  who  had  been  through  stormy 
months,  putting  down  riots  caused  by  his  salt  taxes,  and 
subduing  disobedient  members  of  the  Colonna  family,  was 
then  resting  at  Tivoli,  and  Cardinal  Contarini,  the  Venetian 
cardinal,  kinsman  to  Loyola’s  friend,  and,  as  I  have  said, 
one  of  the  principal  reformers  in  the  papal  curia,  undertook 
to  lay  the  document  before  him.  He  did  so  on  September 
3rd.  The  Pope  expressed  his  approval  and  the  cardinal 
wrote  the  good  news  at  once  to  Ignatius: 

Tivoli,  September  3,  1539. 

Reverendo  Don  Ignazio, 

I  received  yesterday  from  M.  Antonio,  your  Spanish 
friend,  the  copy  of  your  constitution  together  with  a  little 
note  from  the  Master  of  the  Sacred  Palace.  I  waited  upon 
the  Pope  today,  and,  besides  making  your  petition  by  word 
of  mouth,  I  read  to  His  Holiness  your  five  heads.  They 
were  highly  satisfactory  to  him,  and  with  right  good  will  he 
approved  and  confirmed  them.  We  shall  return  with  his 


THE  CHARTER 


205 


Holiness  to  Rome  on  Friday  and  an  order  will  be  given  to 
the  Very  Reverend  Ghinucci  to  make  out  the  brief  or  bull. 
Remember  me  in  your  prayers.  My  kind  regards  to  our 
friend  Lactancius.  Bene  vale  in  Domino. 

Vestri  amantissimus, 

G.  Card.  Contarini. 

However,  on  his  return  to  Rome,  the  Pope  thought  it 
proper,  following  no  doubt  the  usual  course  in  such  mat¬ 
ters,  to  submit  the  petition  to  a  committee  for  examination. 
This  procedure  does  not  seem  to  have  caused  the  Company 
any  apprehensions;  for  on  September  25th  Father 
Salmeron,  in  writing  to  Senor  Juan  Lainez,  the  father  of 
Diego,  says  incidentally:  “You  will  be  able  to  get  full 
particulars  from  the  carrier  of  this  letter,  how  the  Pope,  in 
spite  of  accusations,  slanders  and  law  suits,  has  approved 
and  confirmed  our  mode  of  living  together  after  a  definite 
system,  and  has  given  us  full  permission  to  have  such  con¬ 
stitution  and  laws  for  ourselves  as  we  shall  think  best/’ 

This  news,  however,  was  premature.  The  charter  was 
held  up,  not  so  much  because  of  any  specific  objections  to 
its  provisions,  or  to  the  Jesuits  themselves,  as  because  of  a 
general  objection  to  new  orders.  There  had  been  such  an 
outcry  against  monks  and  friars,  that  many  of  the  reforming 
cardinals  were  not  only  opposed  to  new  orders,  but  wished 
to  do  away  with  many  of  those  already  existing.  And  it 
happened  that  an  important  member  of  the  committee  (as 
it  may  be  informally  called),  to  which  the  charter  had  been 
referred,  Cardinal  Guidiccioni,  “the  glory  and  honor  of 
Lucca,”  a  man  of  piety  and  learning,  had  expressed  such  an 
opinion  most  emphatically.  It  is  said  that  he  had  written 
a  book  in  support  of  his  views.  He  was  so  much  irritated 
by  the  mere  notion  of  a  new  order  that  for  months  he  would 
not  even  look  at  the  papers  in  the  matter.  There  was 
nothing  for  the  Fathers  to  do  but  pray  God  to  touch  his 
heart,  and  Loyola  promised  two  thousand  masses  or  more, 
which  were  afterwards  punctually  celebrated.  In  conse¬ 
quence  of  these  prayers,  as  they  believed,  or,  of  the  inter¬ 
position  of  the  Duke  of  Ferrara,  to  whom  Loyola  himself 


206 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


ascribes  the  success  of  the  application,  or,  as  I  believe,  on 
a  hint  from  the  sagacious  Pope  himself,  Cardinal  Guidic- 
cioni  turned  from  an  opponent  into  a  strong  supporter  of 
the  new  order.  He  said  to  the  Pope  (according  to  Father 
Ribadeneira) :  “I  do  not  approve  of  new  orders;  but  I  do 
not  dare  to  oppose  the  foundation  of  this  order,  for  I  feel 
my  heart  drawn  toward  it.  I  have  such  an  extraordinary 
feeling  for  it,  that  reason  yields  to  this  manifestation  of 
the  divine  will,  and  [he  adds,  anticipating  Pascal]  the  heart 
triumphs  over  all  the  arguments  of  the  mind.”  The  Pope 
caught  his  enthusiasm — “Digitus  Dei  est  hie ”  (Here  is  the 
finger  of  God) — and  the  bull  of  confirmation  was  issued 
on  September  27,  1540. 

Pierre  Lefevre  says: 

In  this  year  occurred  the  memorable  blessing,  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  the  Company,  when  we  presented  ourselves  as  an 
offering  before  the  Supreme  Pontiff  Paul  III,  for  him  to 
determine  how  we  could  serve  Christ  to  the  edification  of 
all  those  who  are  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Apostolic 
See  in  perpetual  poverty,  and  ready  to  go,  in  obedience 
to  his  command,  to  the  ends  of  India.  It  was  God’s  good 
pleasure  that  he  should  accept  us  and  rejoice  in  our  pur¬ 
poses.  Wherefore  I  shall  always  be  obliged,  and  all  of  us, 
to  render  thanks  to  the  Lord  of  the  harvest  of  the  Universal 
Catholic  Church,  i.e.,  to  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  who  deigned 
to  declare  by  the  voice  of  His  Vicar  on  earth  His  good 
pleasure,  and  to  indicate  His  will  that  we  should  serve  Him, 
and  that  He  would  use  us  forever. 

The  bull  itself  incorporated  Loyola’s  petition,  with  the 
exception  of  two  paragraphs  that  did  not  meet  with  favor. 
I  quote  the  document  at  some  length,  on  account  of  its 
importance.  The  style  is  bad,  but  the  very  length  and 
elaboration  of  the  sentences  show  how  anxious  Loyola  was 
not  to  make  any  definite  statement  without  its  proper  quali¬ 
fications.  Indeed,  the  document  reads  as  if  suggestions 
from  one  or  another  of  the  Company  had  been  inserted, 
as  they  were  offered,  without  regard  to  form  or  phraseology: 


THE  CHARTER 


207 


Whosoever  desires  to  be  a  soldier  of  God  under  the  banner 
of  the  Cross  in  this  Company  (which  it  is  our  wish  shall 
be  known  by  the  name  of  Jesus),  and  serve  his  Lord  and 
the  Roman  Pontiff,  His  Vicar  on  earth, — having  first  vowed 
the  vow  of  perpetual  chastity — must  take  note  that  he  is 
a  member  of  a  Company  instituted:  (first  of  all)  to  advance 
souls  on  the  way  of  Christian  life  and  doctrine,  to  propa¬ 
gate  the  faith  by  public  preaching  and  expounding  holy 
scripture,  to  give  the  Spiritual  Exercises ,  to  do  works  of 
charity,  and,  in  especial,  to  instruct  children  and  the  un¬ 
educated  in  Christian  truth,  and  finally,  to  try  to  bring 
spiritual  consolation  to  the  faithful  by  hearing  confession. 
Then,  all  shall  endeavor,  first,  always  to  keep  God  before 
their  eyes,  and  next  the  welfare  of  this  Institution,  which 
is  our  road  that  leads  to  Him,  and  to  make  every  effort  to 
attain  that  end,  according  as  God  disposes;  nevertheless, 
each  shall  try  to  employ  himself  according  to  the  grace 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  may  impart,  and  according  to  his 
grade  in  the  Society,  so  that  no  one  shall  be  dragged  aside, 
here  or  there,  by  well  meant  but  inconsiderate  zeal.  It  shall 
belong  to  the  General,  or  Superior,  whom  we  shall  elect, 
to  assign  to  each  his  grade  and  his  duties,  in  order  to  secure 
the  harmony  necessary  to  every  well  ordered  community. 
The  General  shall  possess  authority  to  draw  up  a  Constitu¬ 
tion  that  shall  give  effect  to  the  purposes  we  set  before 
us,  taking  counsel  with  his  companions,  and  deciding  each 
matter  by  a  majority  of  the  votes.  It  is  to  be  understood 
that,  as  to  the  more  important  and  permanent  matters,  the 
majority  of  the  whole  Company  (that  the  General  can  con¬ 
veniently  get  together)  are  to  give  advice,  whereas  in  un¬ 
important  and  transitory  matters,  only  those  Fathers  who 
may  be  present  in  the  place  where  the  General  resides. 
The  executive  power  shall  lie  in  the  hands  of  the  General. 

Members  of  the  Company  must  understand  that  not  only 
at  the  time  of  making  profession,  but  always  as  long  as 
they  live,  the  whole  Company  and  every  one  of  its  sons 
are  soldiers  of  God,  and  that  they  fight  under  the  orders 
of  our  very  holy  lord  the  Roman  Pontiff,  and  of  future 
Popes,  his  successors.  And,  although  the  Gospel  teaches 


208 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


us  (as  we  also  know  by  reason  of  our  orthodox  faith  and 
firmly  believe)  that  all  faithful  Christians  are  subjects  of 
the  Roman  Pontiff,  since  he  is  their  head  and  the  Vicar  of 
Jesus  Christ,  nevertheless,  for  the  greater  humility  of  our 
Company,  and  for  the  more  perfect  mortification  of  each 
one,  and  the  abnegation  of  our  own  wills,  we  think  it  highly 
fit  and  becoming  to  bind  ourselves  to  this  by  a  separate 
vow,  in  addition  to  the  common  obligation  of  all  Christians. 
So  that,  without  equivocation  or  excuse,  with  all  possible 
promptitude,  we  must  fulfil  all  that  the  present  Roman 
Pontiff  and  his  successors  shall  command  us  to  do  for  the 
good  of  souls,  and  the  propagation  of  the  faith,  in  what¬ 
ever  countries  he  may  wish  to  send  us,  whether  to  the 
Turks,  or  other  infidels,  or  to  the  regions  called  India,  or 
to  the  lands  of  heretics,  schismatics,  or  of  faithful  Christians. 
Wherefore,  those  that  mean  to  join  us,  before  laying  this 
burden  on  their  backs,  should  consider  long  and  carefully 
whether  they  possess  sufficient  gifts  of  the  spirit  to  enable 
them  to  complete  the  building  of  this  fortress  according  to 
the  plan  of  the  Lord;  that  is  to  say,  whether  the  Holy 
Spirit,  which  impels  them,  promises  them  so  much  grace 
that  they  are  hopeful  by  its  help  to  carry  the  weight  of 
this  calling;  and,  afterwards  when,  under  God’s  impelling, 
they  have  enrolled  themselves  in  this  soldiery  of  Jesus 
Christ,  they  must  be  girded  and  ready,  day  and  night,  to 
fulfil  so  weighty  a  promise. 

And  in  order  that  no  one  among  us  shall  make  any  effort 
either  to  obtain,  or  to  refuse,  any  mission  or  any  country, 
each  one  promises  that  he  will  never  have  any  negotiations, 
direct  or  indirect,  with  the  Roman  Pontiff,  in  order  to  be 
sent  to  this  region  or  that,  but  will  leave  all  such  matters 
to  God  and  to  the  Pontiff,  His  Vicar,  and  to  the  General 
of  the  Company,  who  also  promises,  like  the  others,  that 
he  will  not  have  any  negotiations  with  the  Pontiff  to  be 
sent  to  any  particular  place,  except  with  the  advice  of  the 
Company.  All  shall  make  a  vow  to  obey  the  General  of 
the  Company  in  all  things  that  appertain  to  keeping  this 
rule;  and  the  General  shall  command  what  he  may  deem 
proper  to  attain  the  end  that  God  and  the  Company  have 


THE  CHARTER 


209 


prescribed  for  him.  In  governing  he  shall  always  remember 
Christ’s  kindness,  gentleness  and  love,  and  the  precepts  laid 
down  by  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  to  which  he,  and  his  coun¬ 
sellors,  must  always  give  heed.  Specially  enjoined  upon 
them  is  the  instruction  of  children,  and  the  uneducated,  in 
Christian  doctrine,  teaching  the  Ten  Commandments,  and 
the  principles  of  faith,  which,  according  to  the  circumstances 
of  person,  place  and  time,  shall  seem  to  them  appropriate. 
Very  necessary  is  it  that  the  General  and  his  counsellors 
attend  with  especial  vigilance  to  this  ministry,  for  the  edi¬ 
fice  of  the  faith  cannot  be  built  up  among  those  who  are 
our  neighbors  without  this  foundation,  and  there  is  danger 
lest  our  brethren,  the  more  learned  they  become,  may  like¬ 
wise  become  the  more  disinclined  to  this  work,  for  it  appears 
less  brilliant  at  first  sight,  although  there  is  none  so  useful, 
both  for  the  edification  of  our  neighbors,  and  to  exercise  our 
brethren  in  the  virtues  of  charity  and  humility.  On  their 
part,  the  members,  both  for  the  general  good  of  the  Order, 
as  well  as  on  purpose  to  secure  the  continual  exercise  (which 
can  never  be  sufficiently  praised)  of  humility,  shall  always 
be  obliged  to  obey  the  General  in  all  that  pertains  to  the 
Institution  of  the  Company,  and  they  shall  acknowledge 
and  reverence  him,  as  is  befitting,  as  they  would  Christ, 
if  He  were  present  in  person. 

As  we  know  by  experience  that  the  religious  life  is  the 
more  agreeable,  pure  and  edifying,  according  to  the  measure 
by  which  it  is  separated  from  all  contagion  of  avarice  and 
conforms  to  evangelical  poverty, — and  as  we  also  know 
that  our  Lord,  Jesus  Christ,  will  provide  for  His  servants, 
who  seek  nothing  but  the  heavenly  kingdom,  what  food  and 
clothing  may  be  necessary  for  them — therefore  we  all  take, 
every  one  of  us,  the  vow  of  perpetual  poverty ;  and  by  that 
we  mean  that  not  only  each  man  as  an  individual  but  also 
all  together,  shall  receive  no  permanent  property,  or  rents, 
or  income,  or  legal  rights,  for  the  support  or  use  of  the 
Company.  All  shall  content  themselves  with  receiving  only 
things  to  be  consumed,  and  whatever  necessaries  may  be 
given  them.  Nevertheless,  in  the  universities,  college  or 
colleges,  that  they  may  have,  they  shall  be  at  liberty  to 


210 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


receive  income  or  own  possessions,  applicable  to  the  needs 
and  use  of  the  students.  The  General  of  the  Society  shall 
possess  absolute  government  and  superintendence  over  said 
colleges  and  their  students,  in  all  that  concerns  the  election 
of  superiors  and  as  to  the  admission,  dismissal,  reception 
or  exclusion  of  students,  and  the  making  of  rules  concern¬ 
ing  instruction,  higher  studies,  edification  and  correction 
of  said  students,  the  manner  of  distributing  among  them 
food  and  clothing,  and  concerning  all  that  appertains  to  the 
care,  direction  and  government  of  the  same;  and  he  shall 
do  so  in  such  a  way,  that  the  said  students  shall  not  misuse 
such  belongings,  nor  the  Company  apply  them  to  its  own 
use,  but  keep  them  for  supplying  the  needs  of  students. 

Students  after  proving  that  they  have  advanced  in  spirit 
and  in  their  studies,  and  after  passing  sufficient  tests,  may 
be  admitted  to  our  Company.  All  the  members  in  sacred 
orders,  although  they  do  not  possess  benefices  or  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  revenues,  shall  be  obliged  to  say  the  Church  office, 
according  to  the  ritual,  each  by  himself  and  not  all  together. 

The  foregoing  are  the  things  that,  with  the  approval  of 
our  lord  the  Pope,  Paul,  and  of  the  Apostolic  See,  we  are 
able  to  set  forth  with  regard  to  our  profession  and  way 
of  life.  We  do  this  in  order  to  inform,  in  summary  fashion, 
both  those  who  inquire  as  to  our  manner  of  life,  and  also 
those  who  may  come  after  us,  if  God  shall  grant  that  there 
shall  be  hereafter  imitators  of  our  mode  of  life.  As  we 
have  learned  by  experience  that  many  grave  difficulties 
beset  such  a  way  of  life,  we  have  thought  it  fitting  to  decide 
that  no  one  shall  be  received  into  the  Company  without 
a  long  and  thorough  probation.  When  a  novice  shall  have 
shown  himself  wise  in  Christ  and  well  advanced  in  the 
doctrine  and  the  purity  of  the  Christian  life,  then  he  shall 
be  admitted  into  this  soldiery  of  Christ;  may  He  deign  to 
favor  our  poor  beginnings  for  the  glory  of  God  the  Father, 
to  whom  alone  is  due  honor  and  glory  for  ever  and  ever, 
Amen. 

A  few  years  later  the  charter  was  amended  and  enlarged 
in  some  particulars — a  limitation  upon  the  number  of  mem- 


THE  CHARTER 


211 


bers  to  sixty  was  removed — but  it  is  not  necessary  to  ex¬ 
patiate  upon  that.  At  this  period  of  his  life,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  Ignatius  had  attained  his  full  growth.  His  years 
of  education  and  preparation  were  over;  his  years  of  ad¬ 
ministration  begun.  His  general  conceptions  of  the  ills  that 
afflicted  the  world,  and  of  the  work  that  lay  before  him, 
were  cast  in  their  final  mould.  Those  opinions  had  passed 
through  three  phases:  In  the  first,  he  entertained  elemen¬ 
tary  mediaeval  notions  of  religion,  picked  up  during  child¬ 
hood  and  youth  in  Guipuscoa  and  Navarre,  which 
denounced  somewhat  vaguely  the  World,  the  Flesh  and  the 
Devil,  and  very  definitely  Moors  and  Turks,  as  enemies  of 
Christ;  in  the  second,  the  period  of  his  travels  in  Italy,  he 
became  acquainted  with  the  evil  spirit  of  the  Renaissance, 
the  Spirit  that  Questions;  and  in  the  third,  that  of  his  so¬ 
journ  in  Paris,  he  learned  to  believe  that  the  demon  of 
Disobedience  and  Private  Judgment  was  as  hurtful  to  the 
old  ecclesiastical  order  as  Infidelity  or  Doubt. 

Now,  with  the  forces  of  Satan,  all  visible,  all  drawn  up 
before  his  eyes  in  battle  array,  he  girded  himself  to  the  task 
of  recruiting  and  drilling  a  battalion  of  light  horse  that 
should,  at  the  command  of  the  general  in  chief,  Christ’s 
Vicar  on  Earth,  be  ready  for  service  at  all  times,  in  any 
place,  reckless  of  everything  except  the  greater  glory  of 
God. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


THE  election;  the  constitution 

Now  that  the  charter  had  been  granted,  the  next  step 
was  the  election  of  a  general.  Some  new  members  had 
already  joined,  but  the  original  band,  the  First  Fathers,  were 
regarded  as  the  source  of  authority,  and  they  alone  took 
part  in  the  election.  Xavier  and  Rodriguez  were  already 
in  Portugal,  but  knowing  of  the  proposed  action,  they  had 
left  their  ballots;  Lefevre,  who  was  in  Germany,  sent  his. 
Bobadilla  was  unexpectedly  delayed  in  southern  Italy,  and 
lost  his  vote.  Altogether  there  were  but  six  actually  present 
in  Rome,  in  April,  1541,  when  the  election  was  held.  The 
voting  was  conducted  as  if  it  had  been  a  religious  ceremony. 
Each  wrote  the  name  of  his  choice  upon  a  ballot,  and  then 
all  the  ballots,  including  the  three  from  absentees,  were 
put  in  a  box,  where  they  were  left  for  three  days,  during 
which  the  Fathers  prayed  for  God’s  favor,  and  then  taken 
out  and  read.  The  ballots,  in  addition  to  the  names,  con¬ 
tained  some  explanation  or  sentiment.  Salmeron’s  I  have 
already  quoted.  Broet’s  had  the  brevity  of  a  foregone  con¬ 
clusion:  “In  the  name  of  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Amen.  I, 
Paschase  Broet,  choose  Don  Ignatius  Loyola  for  Superior. 
Paschase.”  Coduri,  ill  and  somewhat  disquieted  in  spirit 
at  the  prospect  of  going  to  Ireland — for  he  had  been 
selected,  and  would  have  gone  but  for  his  illness — wrote: 

With  no  thought  but  for  the  greater  glory  of  God  and 
the  greater  good  of  the  whole  Society,  I  vote  for  the  man 
who  in  my  judgment,  ought  to  be  head  and  minister  of  the 
Society.  That  man, — and  I  bear  witness  that  I  have  always 
known  him  zealous  for  the  honor  of  God  and  most  ardent 

212 


THE  ELECTION;  THE  CONSTITUTION  213 

for  the  salvation  of  souls,  and  he  ought  to  be  set  over  others 
for  the  reason  that  he  has  ministered  to  them  and  made 
himself  the  least  among  them, — is  our  honored  Father,  Don 
Ignatius  Loyola;  and  after  him  I  choose  a  man  not  less 
endowed  with  virtues,  our  honored  Father  Peter  Favre. 
This  is  the  truth  before  God  the  Father  and  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ;  nor  should  I  say  otherwise  even  if  I  knew  for 
sure  that  this  was  the  last  hour  of  my  life.  Johannes 
Coduri. 

Rodriguez’s  ballot  is  also  characteristic.  He  thought 
that  he  was  on  his  way  to  India. 

To  the  praise  of  God  and  His  Virgin  Mother.  It  seems 
to  me,  according  to  the  light  which  I  unworthy  unworthily 
possess,  that  Ignatius  is  the  man  whom  we  ought  to  choose 
from  among  us  for  president  and  rector,  and  if  death  or 
some  mischance  prevent,  then  Peter  Favre  should  take  his 
place.  And  as  I  feel  in  this  way  in  my  conscience,  I  wish 
to  confirm  it,  dear  Brethren,  by  writing  my  name  with  my 
own  hand.  And  I  assert  that  I  have  not  been  persuaded 
by  anybody  directly  or  indirectly,  but  act  of  my  own  free 
will,  and  I  believe  that  you  will  do  the  same.  And  as  up 
to  now  there  has  been  no  question  of  ambition  among  us, 
so  I  hope  it  will  continue  to  be,  and  when,  dear  Brethren, 
God  shall  have  blessed  your  wishes  remember  your  brothers. 
Lift  up  your  hearts  for  their  sakes.  I  say  good-bye  to  you 
all,  Brothers.  Rome,  March  5th,  on  which  day  I  leave 
Rome,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  one  thousand  five  hundred 
and  forty.  Symaon  Rodriguez. 

Of  course,  all  the  votes  were  for  Ignatius,  except  his  own, 
which  was  cast  for  whoever,  other  than  himself,  should 
receive  the  most.  Then  followed  one  of  those  scenes  of 
humility  that  are  a  tax  on  the  reader  who  is  not  familiar 
with  the  great  tradition  of  Catholic  self-abnegation. 
Humility  is  not  a  fashionable  quality  in  the  modern  world ; 
we  have  not  been  taught  that  it  is  like  truthfulness  or 


214 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


loyalty,  one  of  the  virtues  most  acceptable  to  God;  and 
when  we  read  of  the  refusal  of  honors  or  office,  knowing 
that  in  the  end  the  refusal  will  be  withdrawn,  we  find  it 
very  difficult  not  to  think  of  the  classical  scene  on  the  feast 
of  the  Lupercal,  and  to  fancy  that  we  are  witnessing  a 
little  high-flown  ecclesiastical  politeness.  But  if  we  suspect 
Ignatius,  we  must  also  suspect  many  popes  and  princes  as 
well  as  illustrious  persons  in  our  own  country,  who  have 
expressed  an  unwillingness,  were  it  not  for  the  overpowering 
duty  of  patriotism,  to  accept  high  office.  At  any  rate, 
Ignatius  acted  as  the  virtue  of  humility  required.  He 
said  that  he  had  a  greater  inclination  to  be  ruled  than  to 
rule,  that  he  was  inadequate  to  govern  himself  and  still  less 
adequate  to  govern  others,  and  therefore,  remembering  his 
evil  ways,  both  those  past  and  those  still  continuing,  his 
many  sins,  wrongdoings,  faults  and  wretchedness,  refused 
to  accept  the  position,  said  he  never  would  unless  he  should 
receive  more  light  than  he  then  had ;  and  he  besought  them, 
in  the  Lord’s  name,  to  commend  themselves  to  God  and 
consider  further  for  three  or  four  days,  who  would  be  the 
fittest  for  the  position.  Accordingly,  after  four  days  the 
Fathers  met  again;  and  again  voted  for  Loyola.  After 
reflecting  upon  the  matter  from  this  side  and  from  that, 
to  see  what  should  be  for  the  greater  service  of  God,  he 
answered  that  he  would  leave  it  in  the  hands  of  his  con¬ 
fessor.  So  he  did.  He  passed  three  days  at  San  Pietro  in 
Montorio,  making  a  full  confession  of  all  his  sins  from  the 
day  that  he  first  was  morally  able  to  commit  sin  up  to 
the  present,  told  all  his  bodily  infirmities,  and  then  bade  the 
confessor,  as  if  in  Christ’s  place,  say  what  he  ought  to  do. 
The  priest  replied  that  the  refusal  seemed  to  be  contrary 
to  the  will  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  nevertheless,  Loyola’s  scru¬ 
ples  of  humility  still  persisted.  Finally  the  priest  wrote 
his  affirmative  decision  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  sealed  it  up, 
and  sent  it  to  the  Society;  and  at  this  Ignatius  yielded  and 
accepted  the  charge. 

On  Friday,  April  22nd,  the  Fathers  visited  tjhe  seven 
pilgrimage  churches,  ending  at  St.  Paul’s  outside  the  walls. 
Here  Ignatius  said  mass,  and  when  the  time  came  for  giving 


215 


THE  ELECTION;  THE  CONSTITUTION 

the  eucharist,  he  took  in  one  hand  the  paten  with  the  host 
upon  it,  and  in  the  other  a  paper  on  which  his  vow  was 
written,  and,  turning  towards  his  brethren,  knelt,  and  re¬ 
peated  aloud,  in  Latin,  the  words  of  the  vow : 

I,  Ignatius  Loyola,  vow  to  God  Almighty,  and  to  the 
Supreme  Pontiff,  His  vicar  on  earth,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Virgin  His  Mother  and  of  the  whole  Court  of  Heaven,  and 
in  the  presence  of  the  Company,  perpetual  poverty, 
chastity  and  obedience,  in  accordance  with  the  provisions 
of  the  Bull  confirming  the  Company  of  Our  Lord  Jesus, 
and  contained  in  the  constitution  as  drawn  or  to  be  drawn. 
Moreover,  I  vow  obedience  in  particular  to  the  Supreme 
Pontiff  concerning  missions  as  set  forth  in  the  Bull.  And 
I  further  vow  that  I  will  teach  boys  in  the  principles  of  the 
faith  according  to  the  Bull  and  the  constitution. 


He  then  partook  of  the  sacrament;  and  after  him,  each 
of  his  companions  in  turn  took  a  similar  vow,  only  instead 
of  addressing  it  to  God  and  to  the  Pope  they  addressed 
it  to  God  “et  tibi,  Reverende  Pater,  locuvi  Dei  tenenti/} 
and  they  also  partook  of  the  sacrament,  and  after  mass 
was  finished  Ignatius  embraced  each  of  them  and  gave 
each  the  kiss  of  peace. 

One  final  act  remained  to  be  done,  the  Society  must  have 
a  constitution.  It  was  obvious  that  Fathers  who  were  off 
on  missions  could  not  possibly  attend  to  framing  a  con¬ 
stitution,  so  it  was  decided  by  those  who  had  come  up  for 
the  election,  to  leave  the  whole  matter  in  the  hands  of  the 
two  Fathers  who  were  to  remain  in  Rome,  Ignatius  and 
Coduri.  The  latter,  however,  died  soon  after,  and  the  task 
devolved  on  Ignatius  alone.  But  his  health  was  not  good, 
and  he  was  heavily  laden  with  the  affairs  of  the  Com¬ 
pany,  and  little  was  accomplished  until  1547,  when  he 
was  given  a  secretary  to  help  him,  Juan  de  Polanco,  a 
young  Spaniard  who  had  recently  finished  his  studies  at 
Padua. 

Loyola’s  task,  in  his  own  eyes  at  least,  was  far  more 


216 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


religious  than  legal.  Lie  told  Father  Gonzalez  de  Camara 
that  “while  he  was  at  work  on  the  constitution,  he  used  to 
say  mass  every  day  and  to  lay  each  several  article  before 
the  Lord  and  pray  over  it.”  The  first  complete  draft  was 
not  finished  until  1550;  this  draft  was  read  to  various 
Fathers  who  happened  to  come  to  Rome,  and  received  some 
alterations  and  amendments,  and  then,  in  its  amended  form, 
proclaimed  as  the  Constitution  (1552),  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  it  had  not  been  ratified  by  a  vote  of  the  Society,  as 
the  charter  required;  so  great  was  Loyola’s  authority  and 
the  religious  sanction  that  in  the  eyes  of  his  companions 
consecrated  what  he  did. 

The  Constitution  I  shall  touch  upon  but  lightly,  doing 
little  more  than  mention  even  its  most  important  pro¬ 
visions.  It  is  preceded  by  a  long  Primum  ac  generale 
Examen,  which  is  an  exposition  of  what  is  required  by  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  Society.  At  the  threshold  it  states:  “Finis 
hujus  Societatis  est,  non  solum  saluti  et  perfectioni  pro - 
priarum  animarum  cum  Divina  gratia  vacane,  sed  cum 
eadem  impense  in  salutem,  et  perfectionem  proximorum 
incumber e”  (“The  object  of  this  Society  is  to  labor  not  only 
for  the  salvation  and  perfection  of  our  own  souls,  by  the 
help  of  God’s  grace,  but  also,  by  the  same  help,  to  devote 
ourselves  zealously  to  the  salvation  and  perfection  of  our 
neighbors.”)  All  the  members,  at  the  end  of  the  noviciate, 
take  the  three  regular  vows,  and  the  professed  members  also 
vow  to  go  in  the  interest  of  religion  wherever  the  Pope  shall 
command.  The  mode  of  life — so  it  says — does  not  out¬ 
wardly  differ  from  that  of  ordinary  men  (majus  Dei  obse - 
quium  semper  intuendo ) ;  penances  or  bodily  chastisements 
are  not  obligatory,  but  each  one  may,  with  permission  of 
his  Superior,  inflict  upon  himself  whatever  discipline  he 
may  judge  will  be  for  the  good  of  his  soul.  The  members 
are  divided  into  classes.  (1)  The  Professed,  all  priests, 
who  have  passed  the  necessary  tests  and  have  taken  the 
four  vows;  (2)  Coadjutors,  who  serve  either  in  a  spiritual 
or  secular  capacity,  and  take  but  the  three  vows;  (3) 
Scholars,  who,  according  to  their  talents  and  proficiency 
may  pass  on  into  the  first  or  second  class,  ad  majorem  Dei 


THE  ELECTION;  THE  CONSTITUTION  217 

gloriam ;  (4)  Persons  awaiting  a  determination  as  to  their 
grade.  A  noviciate  of  two  years  is  required  before  taking 
the  vows,  and  scholars  must  wait  an  additional  year,  or 
longer,  after  completion  of  their  studies  before  they  are 
admitted  to  a  higher  class. 

Chapter  II  enumerates  the  five  impediments  which  bar 
a  man  from  the  Society:  heresy,  homicide,  membership  in 
another  order,  marriage  or  servitude,  and  mental  deficiency. 
On  all  these  points  the  applicant  is  to  be  very  carefully 
examined,  and  also  as  to  his  habits,  inclinations,  and  his 
readiness  to  forsake  all  in  order  to  follow  the  precepts  of 
Christ,  an  omnino  decreverit  sceculum  relinquere  et  consilia 
Domini  Nostri  Jesu  Christi  sequi.  Is  he  firmly  resolved 
to  live  and  die  in  the  Society  of  Jesus?  The  candidate  is 
then  told  that  he  must  follow  the  counsel  of  perfection, 
“Go  and  sell  all  thou  hast,”  and  other  rules  of  great  self- 
abnegation.  “Since  every  communication,  verbal  or  writ¬ 
ten,  with  family  or  friends,  usually  does  more  to  disturb 
the  peace  of  those  who  give  themselves  up  to  the  things 
of  the  Spirit,  than  to  do  them  good,  let  the  candidates  be 
asked  if  they  are  willing  to  forego  all  communication, 
neither  to  write  nor  to  receive  letters,  except  as  the  Superior 
may  permit,  and  that,  all  the  time  they  are  in  a  house  of 
the  Society,  their  letters,  from  them  or  to  them,  be  read, 
and  that  the  Father  in  charge  of  this  matter,  may  pass 
such  letters  on  or  hold  them  back  according  as  he  shall 
judge  most  expedient.”  Let  the  applicant  remember  the 
words  of  Christ:  “If  any  man  come  to  me,  and  hate  not 
his  father  and  mother,  and  wife,  and  children,  and  brethren, 
and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life  also,  he  cannot  be  my 
disciple.”  And  will  he  consent  that  all  his  faults  be  re¬ 
ported  by  any  one  to  his  Superiors,  and  do  as  full  members 
do,  revealing  all  they  do  to  one  another,  in  due  charity, 
ad  majorem  Dei  gloriam? 

During  the  noviciate  the  candidates  are  subjected  to  six 
preliminary  tests:  They  shall  take  the  Spiritual  Exercises 
for  a  month;  serve  in  a  hospital  for  a  month;  travel  for 
a  month  without  money,  begging  their  food  from  door  to 
door;  they  shall  perform  the  most  menial  services  in  a  house 


218 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


of  the  Society;  teach  the  catechism  to  children;  and  hold 
themselves  ready  to  preach  and  hear  confession.  And  the 
novice  must  remember  that  in  the  performance  of  ser¬ 
vices,  of  whatever  sort,  at  the  command  of  a  Superior,  that 
it  is  not  to  him  or  for  his  sake  that  obedience  is  rendered, 
sed  soli  Deo  et  propter  solum  Deum  Creatorem  ac  Dominum 
nostrum.  And,  in  order  that  the  Superior  may  know  those 
under  him,  both  to  enable  him  to  counsel  and  direct  them, 
and  also  to  know  what  service  will  best  suit  their  capacities, 
let  the  novice  at  the  beginning  render  to  him  a  full  account 
of  all  that  he  has  ever  done,  and  again,  at  the  end  of  every 
six  months,  of  what  he  shall  have  done  in  the  interval,  and 
once  more  before  taking  the  vows.  Finally,  after  two  years 
of  preparation,  the  novice,  having  shown  himself  always 
obedient,  having  been  a  pattern  of  edification  during  all  his 
probation,  having  humbly  submitted  to  all  penances  im¬ 
posed  on  him  for  error,  negligence  or  wrongdoing, — and 
both  he  and  the  Superior  being  in  accord  that  it  is  for  the 
best — he  may  then  be  admitted  into  the  body  of  the  Society, 
consecrate  himself  to  God,  and  take  the  vows  according 
to  the  grade  he  is  to  enter.  Let  him  think  well  how  much 
it  avails  for  progress  in  spiritual  life  omnino  et  non  ex  parte 
abhorrere  ab  omnibus  quae  mundus  amat  et  amplectitur; 
and  be  sure  that  he  is  ready  to  suffer  insult,  injury  and 
mockery,  whether  from  a  member  of  the  household,  or  of 
the  Society,  or  from  a  stranger,  not  returning  evil  for  evil 
but  good  for  evil,  and  bearing  it  patiently  for  God’s  grace. 
And  he  must  make  it  his  study  to  renounce  self  absolutely 
and  to  submit  to  continual  mortification  in  every  possible 
thing.  For,  as  Thomas-a-Kempis  says:  uHomo  qui  necdum 
perfecte  in  se  mortuus  est ,  cito  tentatur,  et  vincitur  in  parvis 
et  vilibus  rebus” 

The  Examen  shows  the  care  employed  to  make  the  novice 
and  the  Society  known  to  one  another  before  the  great  vows 
“that  shall  incorporate  and  make  them  one”  are  taken.  I 
have  given  larger  space  to  it  than  I  had  meant;  but  greater 
conciseness  might  have  prevented  the  reader  from  appre¬ 
ciating  how  solemnly  the  novice  is  warned  before  dedicating 
himself  for  life  to  a  task  beyond  his  strength. 


THE  ELECTION;  THE  CONSTITUTION 


219 


Chap. 


Chap. 


Chap. 


The  Constitution 
Part  I. 

On  admission  to  the  novitiate. 

I.  On  who  has  the  right  to  grant  admission. 

II.  On  who  may  be  admitted. 

III.  On  impediments  that  prevent  admission. 

IV.  The  procedure  of  admission. 

Part  II 

On  the  matter  of  dismissing  those  who,  having  been 
admitted  to  probation,  are  found  unsuited  to  the 
Society. 

I.  Who  may  be  dismissed,  and  at  whose  command. 

II.  On  the  causes  for  which  it  is  proper  to  dismiss. 

III.  On  the  procedure  of  dismissal. 

IV.  How  the  Society  shall  behave  to  those  who  leave 

voluntarily,  and  to  those  that  are  dismissed. 

Part  III 

Concerning  what  shall  be  done  in  the  care,  keeping, 
and  advancement  of  the  novices. 

I.  On  taking  care  of  novices  in  matters  that  concern 
the  soul,  and  progress  in  virtue. 

For  this,  it  is  very  necessary  for  the  novices  to 
avoid  all  communication  which  might  chill  their 
purpose;  they  must  not  go  out  of  the  house  except 
at  the  time  prescribed,  and  with  an  appointed  com¬ 
panion,  and  while  in  the  house  converse  only  with 
those  whom  the  Superior  shall  designate;  they 
must  keep  watch  and  ward  over  eyes,  ears  and 
tongues;  they  should  speak  in  words  apt  for  edifi¬ 
cation  (in  circonspectione  et  cedificatione  ver- 
borum),  wear  modest  looks,  walk  with  unhurried 
gait,  and  never  a  gesture  showing  pride  or  im¬ 
patience;  they  should  in  all  matters  leave  the 
better  things  to  others,  look  upon  themselves  as 
inferior,  and  treat  every  one  with  the  respect  due 
to  his  station;  indeed,  each  should  see  in  every 
other  an  image  of  God.  And  it  is  of  the  first  im- 


220 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


portance  for  spiritual  progress  that  all  shall  give 
themselves  over  to  a  perfect  obedience,  looking 
upon  the  Superior,  whoever  he  may  be,  as  in  the 
place  of  Christ,  and  performing  not  only  in  out¬ 
ward  act  but  with  inward  reverence  and  love, 
what  he  shall  command,  however  hard,  integre, 
prompte,  fortiter,  with  due  humility,  without  a 
murmur,  without  an  excuse.  Novices  shall  love 
Poverty  like  a  mother;  they  shall  strive  after 
righteousness  (rectam  intentionem) ,  and  learn  to 
divest  themselves,  as  much  as  may  be  possible,  of 
love  of  all  creatures  in  order  to  turn  all  their 
affection  toward  the  Creator. 

Chap.  II.  On  the  care  of  the  body. 


Part  IV 


On  the  manner  of  instructing  those  who  remain  in 
the  Society,  in  liberal  studies  (litterae)  and  other 
things  that  serve  to  help  our  neighbors. 


Chap.  I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 


On  the  gratitude  to  be  shown  towards  Founders  and 
Benefactors  of  Colleges. 

On  the  property  of  Colleges. 

On  the  students  to  be  matriculated  therein. 

On  dealing  with  students  who  have  been  admitted. 

On  studies. 

These  shall  consist  of  grammar,  rhetoric,  languages, 
logic,  natural  and  moral  philosophy,  metaphysics, 
theology,  both  scholastic  and  positive,  and  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  As  a  rule  Latin  is  to  be  spoken.  And 
so  on;  with  provisions  for  schools  to  be  opened 
in  connection  with  the  colleges,  for  the  government 
of  the  colleges,  and  for  studies  in  any  possible 
Jesuit  university.  Some  text  books  are  prescribed: 
in  theology,  the  Old  and  New  Testaments;  in 
scholastic  doctrine,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas;  in  posi¬ 
tive  theology,  part  of  the  Canon  Law  and  decisions 
of  Councils;  in  logic,  metaphysics,  natural  and 
moral  philosophy,  the  treatises  of  Aristotle.  In 
Greek  and  Latin  literature  care  is  to  be  taken  in 
the  choice  of  books,  unless  they  have  been  ex¬ 
purgated.  This  Fourth  Part  does  not  go  into  great 
detail,  but  it  contains  the  germ  of  what  afterwards 
became,  some  thirty  or  forty  years  later,  the 
famous  Ratio  Studiorum  which  occupied  the  youth 
of  the  upper  classes  in  Europe  for  generations. 


THE  ELECTION;  THE  CONSTITUTION 


221 


Part  V 

Deals  with  admission  to  the  Society,  and  designates 
various  grades.  The  lowest  is  the  novitiate;  next 
there  is  an  intermediate  class  of  Scholastici  ap - 
probati,  who  devote  themselves  to  their  studies, 
or  to  spiritual  discipline;  from  this  intermediate 
stage  members  pass  into  that  either  of  the  Coad- 
jutores  formati,  or  of  the  Professi.  The  coadjutors 
are  divided  into  the  spiritual  and  the  temporal; 
the  former  are  priests,  or  to  become  priests,  and 
occupy  themselves  with  religious  matters,  while 
the  latter  have  strictly  secular  employment.  Of 
the  Professed,  the  greater  number  add  to  the  three 
regular  vows,  the  additional  fourth  vow;  a  few, 
who  have  too  little  talent  for  preaching  or  are  not 
sufficiently  learned,  do  not. 

Part  VI 

On  those  who  are  admitted  and  received  into  the 
body  of  the  Society. 

Chap.  I.  On  what  appertains  to  obedience. 

Sancta  Obedientia:  All  must  observe  obedience 
and  strive  to  excel  in  it;  not  only  in  routine,  but 
in  everything,  not  waiting  for  express  command, 
but  on  the  mere  indication  of  the  Superior’s  will. 
All  must  keep  God  before  their  eyes,  obey  from 
love  and  not  from  fear,  and  strain  every  nerve  of 
their  strength  in  the  virtue.  “Dropping  every 
occupation, — leaving  unfinished  the  letter  we  have 
begun — and  banding  all  our  strength  and  purpose 
in  the  Lord  to  that  end,  so  that  holy  obedience  be 
perfect  in  us  in  every  respect,  in  execution,  in  will, 
and  in  understanding;  obedience  in  execution  con¬ 
sists  in  doing  what  is  ordered;  obedience  in  will, 
in  having  no  other  will  than  his  from  whom  we 
receive  the  order;  obedience  in  understanding,  in 
thinking  as  the  Superior  thinks,  and  in  believing 
what  he  ordains  is  rightly  ordained.  Otherwise 
obedience  is  imperfect.  We  are  to  do  whatever 
shall  be  commanded  us,  with  great  promptitude, 
and  spiritual  joy  and  steadfastness;  persuading 
ourselves  that  all  commands  are  righteous;  and 
laying  aside  in  blind  obedience  our  own  opinion  to 


222 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Chap.  II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 


the  contrary;  yea,  in  everything  prescribed  by 
the  Superior — where  it  cannot  definitely  be  shown 
that  some  kind  of  sin  is  involved.  Let  every  one 
convince  himself  that  those  who  live  under  Obedi¬ 
ence,  should  be  led  and  governed  by  Divine 
Providence  through  their  Superiors,  perinde  ac  si 
cadaver  essent,  as  a  corpse  would  be,  that  allows 
itself  to  be  carried  here  or  there,  and  handled  after 
any  fashion;  or  like  an  old  man’s  staff,  which 
suffers  itself  to  be  used  everywhere,  and  in  any 
way,  that  he  who  holds  it  wishes.” 

Concerning  Poverty. 

On  what  members  of  the  Society  may  do,  and  what 
not. 

On  the  aid  given  to  those  that  are  in  the  Society. 

That  the  Constitution  does  not  impose  obligations 
under  the  penalty  of  sin. 


Part  VII 

On  missions. 

Part  VIII 

On  the  means  of  maintaining  union  between  the 
members  scattered  abroad,  with  one  another  and 
with  the  General. 

Part  IX 

On  the  General  and  his  mode  of  government.  This 
chapter  deals  with  the  qualities  desirable  in  a 
General,  with  his  authority  and  functions,  with 
the  limitations  and  checks  upon  his  power,  which 
are  extremely  elaborate,  and  cut  down  his  auto¬ 
cratic  prerogatives  very  greatly. 


Part  X 

How  to  preserve  and  increase  the  Society. 

I  have  also  quoted  these  articles  more  fully  than  I  had 
intended,  for  they  bear  in  every  chapter  the  individual 
stamp  of  their  author.  They  are  obviously  not  the  work 
of  a  trained  codifier,  such  as  were  the  men  who  drew  up 


THE  ELECTION;  THE  CONSTITUTION  223 

the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  or  The  Code 
Napoleon;  they  are  the  labor  of  a  man  who  wrestles  with 
the  difficulty  of  putting  into  concise  and  logical  form  rules 
and  counsels  that  he  has  learned  in  life  through  manifold 
experience,  who  is  accustomed  to  govern  by  force  of  char¬ 
acter  and  emotional  intensity,  rather  than  by  cold  reason. 
Friends  of  the  Society  have  greatly  extolled  this  Constitu¬ 
tion.  One  Pope  declared  that  it  was  more  the  result  of 
Divine  inspiration  than  of  human  prudence.  Such  is  the 
orthodox  opinion.  Father  Astrain,  who  is  notable  for 
moderation  and  good  sense,  says:  “El  Espiritu  Sancto  fue 
el  principal  maestro  de  Ignacio ■”  Nevertheless,  an  outsider 
cannot  but  remember  that  Sir  William  Blackstone  praised 
the  Common  Law  of  England  as  a  perfect  work  of  human 
reason,  and  Henri  de  Boulainvilliers,  calls  the  French  feudal 
government  le  chef-d'oeuvre  de  Vesprit  humain.  However, 
the  proof  of  the  pudding  lies  in  the  eating;  not  in  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  those  who  merely  read  the  receipt.  The  Constitu¬ 
tion  of  the  Order  of  Jesus  can  only  be  judged  by  those  who 
are  familiar  with  it  in  operation.  It  is  less  common,  how¬ 
ever,  to  find  fault  with  the  form  and  style  of  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  than  with  its  substance.  Protestants  have  declaimed 
against  what  they  call  the  iron  constraint  put  upon  the 
human  soul.  But  if  one  stops  to  think,  how  does  the  Jesuit 
training  differ,  unless  perhaps  in  conscientious  intensity, 
from  that  at  West  Point  or  Saint-Cyr?  In  a  military 
academy  the  whole  weight  of  authority  comes  down  on 
the  individual  soul.  Substitute  the  flag  for  the  cross, 
country  for  church,  famous  generals  and  marshals  for  saints 
and  martyrs,  honor  for  grace,  and  you  will  find  that  the 
constraint  in  either  case  is  very  much  the  same.  Obedience 
is  of  equal  obligation,  the  word  of  the  superior  as  indisput¬ 
able,  the  period  of  preparation  about  as  long.  As  for 
liberty  of  thought,  there  is  no  more  room  for  patriotic 
agnosticism  in  West  Point  than  for  religious  agnosticism 
in  a  Jesuit  College.  In  New  York  state  men  have  been  sent 
to  prison  for  insult  to  the  symbol  of  our  patriotic  faith. 
The  difference  is  that  we  have  lost  our  belief  in  super¬ 
natural  religion,  but  not  as  yet  our  faith  in  nationality. 


224 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


But  whatever  the  plausibility  of  this  comparison,  there  is, 
in  truth,  something  humanly  sacrilegious  in  coldly  criticis¬ 
ing  a  document,  every  clause  of  which  was  prayed  over  with 
tears,  and  offered  to  the  Lord. 


CHAPTER  XXII 


MISSIONS  IN  ITALY  AND  IRELAND 

The  charter  of  the  Company  of  Jesus  is  a  declaration  of 
purposes,  and  the  Constitution  prescribes  the  methods  by 
which  the  Company  shall  fit  itself  to  carry  out  those  pur¬ 
poses;  but  documents  at  best  furnish  no  more  than  a  dia¬ 
gram,  or  mechanical  plan,  and  tell  little  or  nothing  of  the 
organism’s  vital  processes.  It  will  therefore  be  necessary 
to  describe,  or  rather  to  indicate  by  a  few  details  and  epi¬ 
sodes,  what  the  Company  did;  for  as  we  can  best  estimate 
the  character  and  talents  of  a  commander-in-chief  by  fol¬ 
lowing  the  course  of  the  campaign  and  the  movements  of 
his  troops,  so  by  following  the  doings  of  the  early  Jesuits, 
at  first  but  a  dozen,  and  then  gradually  increasing  in  num¬ 
bers,  we  shall  get  a  clearer  idea  of  Loyola’s  genius.  I  shall 
therefore  take  a  brief  survey  of  the  labors  of  these  new 
apostles  as  they  trudged  from  city  to  city,  going  about  their 
business  of  saving  souls,  and  doing  whatever  they  believed 
to  be  for  the  greater  glory  of  God. 

As  a  general  rule  the  Fathers  conducted  missions.  They 
preached,  sometimes  in  a  church,  in  the  cathedral  perhaps, 
sometimes  in  the  streets,  either  expounding  the  Bible,  or 
discoursing  on  ethics  or  religious  topics;  they  visited  the 
sick  in  hospitals;  they  heard  confessions,  and  administered 
the  eucharist;  they  attended  the  dying;  they  gave  the 
Spiritual  Exercises;  they  taught  children  the  catechism,  and 
older  boys  the  doctrines  of  the  Church;  they  combatted 
heresy;  occasionally  they  converted  a  Jew  or  a  Turk;  they 
did  their  best  to  persuade  persons  living  in  concubinage  to 
marry  or  to  separate.  They  slept  in  a  hospital  or  some 
charity  lodging  house,  and  lived  upon  alms.  What  they 
received  beyond  their  immediate  needs  they  gave  to  the 
poor.  Sometimes  they  were  sent  to  reform  a  monastery  or 

225 


226 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


nunnery,  sometimes  to  found  a  Jesuit  college,  or  to  perform 
some  special  task  imposed  by  the  Pope — ad  zizaniam  extir- 
pandam  quam  aliqui  Satance  operarii  super seminaverunt — ; 
but  the  usual  employment  was  upon  evangelical  mis¬ 
sions.  They  travelled  over  a  great  part  of  Europe, — Italy, 
Spain,  Portugal,  France,  Southern  Germany,  the  Low  Coun¬ 
tries,  even  going  to  Ireland, — across  the  seas  to  Ethiopia, 
and  India,  and  beyond.  It  seems  plain  that  the  clever  Pope, 
Paul  III,  and  the  more  clear-sighted  prelates,  recognized 
at  once  the  great  service  that  this  Company  of  spiritual 
knights  errant  could  render  to  the  Papacy;  and,  indeed, 
they  must  have  been  dull  of  mind  if  they  did  not,  for  the 
Papacy  had  not  had  such  defenders  since  Francis  and 
Dominic  had  come  to  its  rescue  three  hundred  years  before. 

Their  missions  began  even  before  the  Company  had  been 
approved  by  the  Pope.  In  the  summer  of  1539  the  Cardinal 
of  Santangelo,  governor  of  Parma  (at  that  time  under  papal 
jurisdiction)  took  Lainez  and  Lefevre  with  him.  A  letter 
from  Lainez  gives  some  account  of  their  life  there: 

To  Father  Ignatius  Loyola 

Parma,  June  2nd,  1540. 

May  the  grace  and  peace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  be 
with  us,  Amen.  .  .  .  Spiritual  matters  here  by  the  grace 
of  our  Lord  advance  every  day  from  good  to  better.  I  con¬ 
tinue  my  preaching,  with  considerable  fruit  and  comfort 
for  the  listeners,  and  as  a  consequence,  not  without  some 
opposition, — but  vincit  veritas,  and  all  things  work  to¬ 
gether  for  good.  So  it  comes  about  that  some  do  not  want 
me  to  preach  in  the  cathedral,  because  they  say  it  inter¬ 
feres  with  the  services,  and  that  the  season  is  over.  Never¬ 
theless  they  are  calming  down.  I  don’t  know  how  long  it 
will  last. 

Confessions  multiply  to  a  glorious  extent;  a  large  num¬ 
ber  of  the  parish  priests  have  begun  to  hear  confession  once 
a  month,  and  five  churches,  beside  ours,  celebrate  the  com¬ 
munion  every  feast  day.  The  Exercises  grow  day  by  day, 


MISSIONS  IN  ITALY  AND  IRELAND 


227 


for  many  of  those  who  have  taken  them  instruct  others; 
one  gives  them  to  ten,  another  to  fourteen.  As  soon  as 
one  brood  is  hatched,  another  begins,  so  that  we  see  the 
children  of  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation; 
and  everybody  has  changed  their  way  of  living  so  that  it 
is  something  to  praise  God  for.  And  some  persons  whom 
God  has  called  have  died  with  so  much  courage  and  joy, 
calling  on  Jesus,  that  anybody  would  be  edified;  and  the 
sick  are  a  great  deal  more  patient  than  they  used  to  be. 

And,  besides  this,  our  Lord  has  opened  up  a  new  field 
in  the  nunneries.  A  Benedictine  convent,  the  richest  in 
this  neighborhood,  asked  me  to  come  and  preach  once  to 
the  nuns,  and  I  went  and  preached  six  times,  with  no  one 
else  there  but  the  chaplain.  During  the  course  of  my  ser¬ 
mons,  an  outsider,  a  cousin  of  the  abbess  and  dressmaker 
for  the  nunnery,  to  whom  Brother  Don  Pablo  had  given 
the  Exercises,  went  and  told  them  about  the  Exercises  and 
aroused  their  interest;  and  our  Lord  moved  them  so  that 
at  my  last  sermon  one  of  the  nuns  said  that  she  wanted 
to  speak  to  me,  and  up  to  fourteen  more  followed  her,  and 
all  said  they  wished  the  Exercises .  And  I,  without  more 
ado,  gave  one  Exercise,  and  left  instructions  that  Don  Pablo 
should  go  on  giving  them.  And  that  was  done  ...  I  can’t 
recount  all  the  fruits  that  have  sprung  up — knowledge  of 
God,  tears,  reform  of  habits.  All  are  eager  to  do  some¬ 
thing,  and  they  give  up  various  little  luxuries;  one  gives 
her  clothes-press  to  the  infirmary,  another  her  coffer  to 
the  sacristy.  They  no  longer  want  to  work  on  dainty 
articles;  they  don’t  wish  rich  litters,  as  they  used  to.  They 
are  most  content  in  their  vocation,  very  obedient,  no  con¬ 
tentions,  all  bent  on  conquering  their  wills  and  overcoming 
temptation,  and  upon  perseverance  in  prayer,  in  fast¬ 
ings,  and  in  all  the  discipline  of  the  rule;  and,  withal,  they 
think  they  are  in  paradise,  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  they 
deserve  to.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  opposition  from  the 
confessor,  who  was  once  a  friar,  as  well  as  from  the  older 
nuns;  but  we  have  held  our  own,  because  the  abbess  has 
always  been  on  our  side,  and  the  vicar  was  not  against  us. 
Now  the  confessor  dissembles;  and  the  nuns  say  nothing; 


228 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


even  the  most  hostile  are  almost  ready  to  join  our  side. 
So  we  hope  for  a  great  harvest  in  this  nunnery.  .  .  . 

And  besides  the  attitude  in  the  city,  all  the  villages 
roundabout  are  well  disposed  to  us — if  there  were  only 
laborers  for  the  harvest!  On  my  way  to  Piacenza,  before 
Pentecost,  I  passed  through  a  large  village,  and  somebody 
who  had  heard  me  in  Parma  recognized  me,  and  told  the 
canons,  who  despatched  one  of  their  number  to  invite 
me  to  preach.  So  I  made  a  halt,  went  to  the  chief  church, 
and  got  into  the  pulpit;  and  I  did  the  same  on  my  way 
back.  The  congregation  was  so  excited,  that  many  times 
messengers  came  to  tell  me  to  hurry  along  as  all  the  town 
was  waiting  for  me,  etc.  ...  I  don’t  think  of  anything  else 
to  write  about  of  matters  here,  except  that  Don  Pablo  is 
well  by  the  grace  of  our  Lord,  although  I  am  somewhat 
tired.  I  am  afraid  of  some  such  sickness  as  I  usually  get; 
but  I  hope  that  it  will  not  be  so  discourteous  as  not  to  wait 
till  Master  Pedro  [Lefevre]  is  well.  .  .  .  This  is  all  we 
have  to  say.  We  should  like  to  know  from  you  what  you 
have  heard  about  those  who  have  gone  to  India,  and  to 
Ireland,  and  about  Caceres  [in  Paris]  and  Araoz  [in 
Spain].  .  .  . 

Yours  in  Christ, 

Lainez. 

From  there  Lainez  went  to  Piacenza,  where  his  experiences 
were  sufficiently  similar  to  those  in  Parma  to  make  it  un¬ 
necessary  for  me  to  narrate  them.  Then  he  was  in  Rome 
for  a  time,  assisting  Ignatius.  In  1542  he  took  up  his  abode 
in  Venice,  where  he  stayed  for  three  years,  going  on  fre¬ 
quent  missions  to  towns  in  the  neighborhood,  Verona, 
Vicenza,  Brescia,  Bassano  and  elsewhere.  In  Padua  he 
started  a  college,  and  admitted  among  the  first  students 
Andre  Desfreux,  commonly  called  Frusio,  a  Frenchman,  a 
person  of  note  in  the  early  history  of  the  Order,  and  Juan 
de  Polanco,  who  subsequently  became  Loyola’s  private 
secretary  and  finally  his  biographer.  A  few  years  later, 
after  attendance  upon  the  Council  of  Trent,  Lainez  ac¬ 
cepted  a  warm  invitation  from  Duke  Cosimo,  and  went  to 


MISSIONS  IN  ITALY  AND  IRELAND 


229 


Florence,  about  the  time  that  Benvenuto  Cellini  was  there, 
busy  with  modelling  and  casting  his  Medusa  and  Perseus, 
and  hammering  and  chiselling  gold  and  silver  vessels  to  the 
great  contentment  (as  he  says)  of  his  patrons. 

Lainez  was  an  excellent  preacher.  Andre  Desfreux,  after 
hearing  him  preach  in  Florence,  wrote: 

It  seemed  to  me  that  everybody,  if  not  with  his  lips  then 
in  his  heart,  said:  “No  man  has  ever  spoken  like  that  in 
our  time”;  and  I  can  say  on  my  conscience  that  I  have 
never  heard,  and  never  hope  to  hear  in  my  life,  sermons  of 
greater  perfection,  in  spirit,  doctrine,  or  delivery.  His  re¬ 
straint  in  gesture  is  admirable,  and  such  clarity,  and  such 
readiness  of  expression;  and  he  has  a  way  of  explaining  by 
familiar  illustrations,  when  his  thought  is  too  deep  or  too 
subtle  for  the  ordinary  intelligence,  so  that  even  the  most 
uneducated  women  can  follow  him. 

From  Florence,  Lainez  returned  to  Venice,  stopping  on 
the  way  at  Gubbio,  Monte  Pulciano  and  Siena.  A  few 
months  later  he  went  down  to  Naples,  and  across  to 
Palermo,  and  from  there  sailed  with  the  Spanish  fleet  on 
a  three  months’  campaign  against  the  Turks  in  Tripoli 
(1550),  and  after  that  he  made  a  visit  to  Pisa.  Two  years 
later  he  was  named  Provincial  of  Upper  Italy,  and  among 
other  labors,  opened  a  Jesuit  college  in  Genoa.  I  go  into 
these  details  in  order  to  show  how  much  ground  these  early 
Jesuit  missionaries  covered,  how  far  and  wide  they  sowed 
their  seed.  Other  Fathers  toiled  in  other  Italian  cities; 
they  all  did  very  much  the  same  sort  of  things  that  Lainez 
did.  Bobadilla  went  to  Naples  where  he  wrestled  with 
heresy  and  helped  break  up  a  meeting  at  which  Juan  Valdes 
“was  vomiting  forth  blasphemies.”  Nadal,  too,  should  be 
mentioned,  for  he  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  start  in 
practice  the  Ratio  Studiorum,  the  course  of  studies  that 
afterwards  became  world-famous;  he  displayed  his 
liberality  and  good  sense  by  making  use  of  text  books  by 
Erasmus,  Lefevre  d’Etaples,  Lorenzo  Valla,  and  Luis 
Vives,  all  highly  obnoxious  for  one  reason  and  another  to 


230 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


bigoted  conservatives.  I  shall  leave  them,  to  describe  ad¬ 
ventures  of  another  kind,  in  a  different  part  of  the  world. 
The  expedition  of  Fathers  Broet  and  Salmeron  to  Ireland 
was  far  from  successful.  It  was  utterly  ill  judged,  and  re¬ 
veals  how  ignorant  the  Papal  Curia  was  of  the  conditions 
there ;  but  it  also  shows  the  extreme  confidence  that  already 
at  this  time,  1541,  the  Pope  placed  in  the  courage  and  de¬ 
votion  of  the  new  Order.  I  will  merely  remind  the  reader 
that  Henry  VIII  some  years  before  had  established  the 
Anglican  Church  in  England,  and  was  doing  his  best  to 
stamp  out  Catholicism  in  Ireland;  and  with  that  I  will  let 
the  Fathers  tell  their  own  story: 

To  Marcellus  Cervinus,  Cardinal  of  Santa  Croce. 

Edinburgh,  9  April,  1542. 

Most  Reverend  and  Illustrious  Lord: 

As  we  think  that  you  already  know  about  our  journey 
up  to  the  time  we  reached  Scotland  by  various  letters  which 
we  have  written  to  our  Superior,  Father  Ignatius,  in  order 
to  avoid  tedious  repetition  we  shall  not  say  much  of  that 
here.  This  letter  will  confine  itself  to  a  brief  account  of 
the  mission  itself  with  which  we  were  charged. 

First,  after  we  left  Dieppe,  we  embarked  at  a  port  in 
Flanders,  and  sailed  for  Scotland,  where  we  arrived  on  the 
last  day  of  1541.  We  experienced — our  voyage  being  in 
the  month  of  December — various  sorts  of  bad  weather.  We 
ran  other  dangers,  too,  for  twice  the  winds  obliged  us  to 
put  into  English  ports  and  stay  ten  or  twelve  days.  Our 
clothes  and  our  ignorance  of  the  language  exposed  us  to 
suspicion,  but  by  Christ’s  intervention  we  escaped.  At 
Lyons  we  met  Cardinal  Beaton  of  Scotland,  and  delivered 
the  document  we  had  brought  for  him  from  the  Pope.  He 
advised  us  by  no  means  to  proceed  with  our  undertaking, 
because,  as  he  said,  every  town,  village,  castle  and  strong¬ 
hold  was  in  the  possession  of  the  King  of  England,  and  his 
soldiers  guarded  every  port,  and  because  the  Irish  were  the 
wildest  people  in  the  world,  barbarians,  and  incapable  of 
any  civilization.  In  Scotland,  too,  we  received  the  same 


MISSIONS  IN  ITALY  AND  IRELAND 


231 


advice  from  many  men  of  high  position,  among  others,  the 
Archbishop  of  Glasgow,  and  the  bishop  of  the  Isles, — as  the 
Isles  are  very  near  Ireland,  this  prelate  would  be  likely  to 
know  the  condition  of  Ireland  and  the  manners  of  its 
princes — and  also  from  many  others,  even  Irishmen,  that 
on  no  account  should  we  go  to  Ireland,  if  we  valued  our 
lives. 

We  were  somewhat  disturbed  by  this  testimony,  but  could 
not  rest  content  with  it,  nor  did  we  deem  such  a  course  con¬ 
sistent  with  our  commission.  We  thought  it  best  to  see 
the  island  and  the  difficulties  there  for  ourselves.  Nobody 
else  took  that  view,  but  as  the  event  turned  out,  perhaps  a 
good  spirit  urged  us  on.  .  .  .  Our  plan  was  that  if  it  proved 
not  to  be  safe  to  stay,  then  to  shake  the  dust  from  our  feet 
and  return  as  quickly  as  possible;  at  least,  we  should  be 
able  to  testify  concerning  the  state  of  Ireland  from  what 
we  had  seen  with  our  own  eyes  and  not  from  hearsay. 

We  landed  in  Ireland  on  the  second  day  of  Lent  and 
stayed  there  about  34  days.  In  that  time  we  questioned, 
inquired  and  examined;  and,  in  short,  found  that  what  we 
had  been  told  about  Ireland  was  true,  or  rather  that  con¬ 
ditions  were  even  worse.  Not  one  stone  had  been  left  on 
another;  for  to  begin  at  the  most  deplorable  end,  the  princes 
have  been  forced  into  subjection  to  the  King  of  England. 
This  has  been  done  within  the  last  few  months.  There  are 
three  princes,  much  more  powerful  than  the  rest,  who  rule 
over  all  the  wild  parts  of  Ireland,  Oynell  [O’Neil],  Odonel 
[O’Donnell]  and  Onell  [O’Neil].  First,  O’Donel,  as  we 
learn  on  good  authority,  was  summoned  by  the  Royal 
Deputy  to  Dublin,  and  there  made  terms,  pledging  his 
allegiance  to  the  King,  and  subscribing  in  particular  to  two 
articles,  first  to  recognize  the  King  of  England  as  supreme 
head  of  Ireland,  in  spiritual  as  well  as  in  temporal  matters, 
and,  second,  to  deliver  up  to  the  Royal  Deputy  every  Apos¬ 
tolic  legate  or  anyone  else  bringing  Apostolic  letters  from 
the  Papal  Curia,  The  Abbot  of  Derry  and  the  Bishop  of 
Derry  were  present  when  he  signed,  and  they  swore  that 
all  this  was  true.  And  the  fact  was  corroborated,  because 
when  that  same  prince  knew  that  we  had  come  to  his 


232 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


dominions,  he  wrote  to  the  Abbot  of  Derry  to  fetch  us,  but 
with  the  utmost  secrecy,  lest  word  of  it  reach  the  ears  of 
the  Royal  Deputy  and  he  get  into  trouble  for  breaking 
the  treaty.  These  letters  and  his  signature  we  saw  with 
our  own  eyes.  But  as  we  had  been  sent  openly  and  had 
entered  Ireland  openly,  we  did  not  think  it  consistent  with 
the  dignity  of  the  Apostolic  See  that  we  should  be  received 
in  a  secret  interview,  so  we  first  postponed  our  visit  to  the 
Prince,  and  then,  a  few  days  later,  left.  He  knew  of  our 
departure  but  did  not  ask  for  us. 

Prince  Oynell,  after  a  manful  resistance  for  several  years 
to  the  King’s  fury,  with  the  loss  of  thousands  of  men  on 
each  side,  and  after  his  lands  had  been  devastated  so  that 
he  hardly  had  a  safe  place  to  go  to,  submitted  to  the  King 
and  plighted  his  allegiance;  and  he  was  obliged  to  deliver 
up  his  son  as  hostage  for  observance  of  the  treaty.  This 
was  about  four  or  five  months  ago.  .  .  .  Prince  Onell,  like¬ 
wise,  the  third  of  the  three,  who  is  a  little  farther  away  from 
the  Royal  Deputy,  has  also  been  summoned  to  Dublin  to 
do  as  the  other  two  have  done.  If  he  refuses  to  go,  he 
knows  that  the  English  will  attack  him.  So,  finally,  almost 
all  that  part  of  Ireland  to  which  we  have  been  sent, — the 
wild  region — the  only  part  that  remained  faithful,  has 
been,  partly  voluntarily,  partly  by  force  and  fear,  sub¬ 
jected  to  the  King.  If  any  corner  remains  free,  it  will 
probably  soon  be  subjugated.  As  a  token  of  this  subju¬ 
gation,  the  King,  who  formerly  called  himself  Lord  of  Ire¬ 
land,  has  now  usurped  the  grander  title  of  King  of  Ireland. 

Besides,  our  particular  purpose — as  the  very  reverend 
Cardinals,  who  planned  and  directed  our  mission,  told  us — 
was  to  establish  peace  among  the  princes  and  lords  of 
Ireland,  to  the  end  that  by  their  union  they  should  be  better 
able  to  defend  themselves  from  the  King,  and  even  make 
war  on  him,  if  necessary,  for  the  sake  of  our  religion,  and 
of  extending  the  Apostolic  sway,  which  the  King  is  wild  to 
destroy.  But  we  met  some  of  the  princes,  Maculin  [Mac- 
Quillan],  Ochan  [O’Cahen]  and  several  others,  and  could 
see  how  desperate  and  incurable  this  disease  of  intestine 
feuds  is.  Their  hatred  of  one  another  is  rooted  in  the  long 


MISSIONS  IN  ITALY  AND  IRELAND 


233 


past;  and  their  ways  are  fierce  and  barbarous,  brutal  rather, 
to  a  degree  unbelievable  to  any  one  who  has  not  seen  them. 
And  if  they  do  make  peace,  they  violate  it  before  the  end 
of  the  month  and  things  are  worse  than  before;  for  then 
they  have  but  one  object — to  steal  cattle  and  horses,  and 
set  fire  to  one  another’s  villages  and  churches.  The  most 
successful  freebooter  is  the  most  respected.  Of  this  we  were 
witnesses,  for  while  we  were  staying  in  the  territory  of 
lord  Maculin,  and  not  over  two  miles  away  from  his  house, 
he  set  out  on  a  foray  against  his  enemies,  harried  the 
countryside  for  sixty  miles  around,  and  drove  back  two 
thousand  horses  and  cows,  as  we  hear,  burnt  villages  and 
killed  many  men.  We  think  the  only  remedy  for  this  evil, 
and  for  a  general  reformation  of  the  island,  is  to  have  a 
Catholic  monarch,  whom  they  will  be  afraid  of  and  obey, 
and  who  will  punish  criminals  and  establish  justice.  But 
that  can’t  be  done,  for  every  prince  wrould  want  to  be 
king.  .  .  . 

Moreover,  to  come  down  to  matters  of  less  importance, 
almost  all  the  monasteries  of  this  island  have  been  sup¬ 
pressed  and  the  monks  driven  away,  even  in  the  compara¬ 
tively  safe  region  where  we  are.  A  few  had  been  left  as  a 
favor  to  the  princes,  which  was  granted  in  an  interlude  of 
friendly  relations.  But  now  Odonel  is  daily  beset  to  de¬ 
stroy  the  monasteries  in  his  lands.  The  few  monks  still 
there  are  making  ready  to  go  into  exile  this  summer,  or 
to  hide, — as  they  have  repeatedly  told  us, — because  they 
expect  the  English  to  come,  erect  forts  and  build  houses, 
as  the  land  would  be  very  fertile,  if  it  were  cultivated.  And 
the  Irish  bishops,  who  have  been  appointed  in  Rome,  as 
soon  as  they  land,  are  forced  to  surrender  their  Apostolic 
letters  to  the  Deputy  to  be  burned  (together  with  their 
bearers) ;  although  sometimes — as  we  have  been  told  in  the 
case  of  one  bishop — they  obtain  a  new  grant  of  the 
bishopric  from  the  Deputy.  Those  who  are  conscientious 
and  fear  God,  are  compelled  to  fly  from  their  bishoprics 
and  hide  in  the  woods,  to  wait  till  the  King  dies,  like  the 
Archbishop  of  Tuain,  the  Bishop  of  Kildare,  and  many 
others.  .  .  . 


234 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


However,  we  have  come  upon  a  few  simple  honest  god¬ 
fearing  folk  in  the  island,  who  are  devoted  to  the  Apostolic 
See  and  have  not  bent  the  knee  to  Baal,  and  who  have  re¬ 
ceived  as  with  kindness  and  respect,  after  the  fashion  of 
the  country.  They  confessed  and  partook  of  the  eucharist 
for  the  sake  of  the  indulgences  that  are  granted  them,  in 
accordance  with  the  powers  conferred  upon  us;  but  they  are 
very  poor  and  can  hardly  support  themselves,  how  much 
less  support  us,  especially  as  the  princes,  on  whom  we  re¬ 
lied  as  the  base  of  everything,  are  bound  over  to  the  King. 

We  granted  pardons  for  bastardy  and  incest,  of  which 
there  is  an  immense  amount.  Many  of  these  pardons  we 
gave  gratis  for  the  love  of  God.  From  a  few  we  collected 
some  money,  but  not  much,  because  the  country  is  in¬ 
credibly  poor  and  we  did  not  wish  to  get  their  money  but 
to  lift  them  out  of  sin;  for  pardon,  or  no  pardon,  they  would 
go  on  doing  in  the  same  way  till  the  day  of  their  deaths, 
as  ample  experience  testifies.  But  all  the  money  collected 
we  gave  away  publicly  to  the  poor  or  to  some  pious  chari¬ 
ties,  to  the  great  astonishment  and  edification  of  the  bishops 
who  saw  it,  and  of  others  who  heard  of  it. 

So,  we  considered  all  the  circumstances: — there  was  no 
safe  place  to  stay;  the  English  were  ready  to  bribe  the  Irish 
to  deliver  us  up ;  there  was  no  city  nor  town ;  there  was  no 
hope  of  making  peace  between  the  princes,  and  they  had 
sworn  allegiance  to  the  King,  honestly  or  not;  it  was  not 
consistent  with  the  dignity  of  the  Apostolic  See  to  conceal 
ourselves  in  the  woods  and  other  hiding  places;  and  we  had 
been  commanded  by  the  Cardinals,  deputed  to  arrange  our 
mission,  that  if  we  found  Ireland  in  the  state  in  which  we 
did,  to  shake  the  dust  off  our  feet  and  return;  and  besides, 
many  honorable  Irishmen  advised  us  to  leave  for  the  sake 
of  our  lives  and  the  dignity  of  the  Apostolic  See;  and  our 
consciences  told  us  not  to  run  the  risk  of  probable  death 
without  hope  of  doing  any  good.  So  for  all  these  reasons 
we  decided  to  go  back  to  Scotland,  etc.,  etc.  .  .  . 

Your  unworthy  servants, 

Paschasius  Broet 
Alphonsus  Salmeron. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


PORTUGAL 

The  Society  of  Jesus,  as  the  last  chapter  shows,  started 
upon  its  world-wide  career  almost  at  once,  even  before  the 
proposed  charter  had  been  granted.  Chance,  or  Providence, 
seemed  to  have  a  trick  of  holding  out  its  hand  to  Ignatius, 
and  each  time  he  grasped  it.  King  John  of  Portugal,  a  very 
pious  and  somewhat  superstitious  prince,  felt  troubled  in 
conscience  at  the  thought  of  all  the  heathen  in  his  far-flung 
empire,  and  asked  Dr.  Govea,  principal  of  the  College  of 
Sainte-Barbe,  how  he  should  get  missionaries;  or,  perhaps 
the  first  suggestion  came  from  Govea.  At  any  rate  Dr. 
Govea  bade  him  apply  to  Loyola.  As  a  consequence,  Xavier 
and  Rodriguez  were  assigned  to  this  duty;  but  upon  their 
arrival  in  Lisbon,  they  started  so  lively  a  religious  revival, 
that  King,  nobles  and  clergy  wished  them  to  stay  in  Portu¬ 
gal.  It  was  finally  decided  to  keep  Rodriguez  and  send 
Xavier  to  India.  This  was  done.  Xavier  sailed  in  April, 
1541,  while  Rodriguez  remained  as  head  of  the  Jesuit 
mission  in  Portugal. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  say  more  of  this  Portuguese  mis¬ 
sion  than  may  be  necessary  to  give  an  idea  of  Loyola’s 
generalship.  The  Jesuit  Fathers  became  very  much  the 
fashion,  they  were  known  as  the  “apostles,”  and  all  the 
world  went  to  hear  them  preach;  no  one  but  a  Turk,  it 
was  said,  would  stay  away.  Many  new  recruits  of  high 
social  position  joined  them,  among  others  a  young  noble¬ 
man,  Louis  Gonzalez  de  Camara,  to  whom  Ignatius  dic¬ 
tated  the  Memoirs  that  I  have  quoted  so  often.  In  spite 
of  this  success,  however,  there  were  trials  and  vexations. 
Satan,  as  the  Fathers  often  noticed,  went  about  scattering 
tares  among  the  good  seed.  Rodriguez  proved  to  be  the 
wrong  man  for  head  of  a  mission.  Ignatius,  however,  is 

235 


236 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


not  to  be  blamed  for  the  appointment,  as  Rodriguez  had 
been  selected  to  go  to  India,  quite  a  different  task;  but  hav¬ 
ing  been  detained  by  the  King  and  become  a  court  favorite, 
it  would  have  been  highly  impolitic,  very  likely  impossible, 
to  have  put  in  any  one  else  to  fill  what  was  virtually  the 
office  of  Provincial  for  Portugal. 

It  is  difficult  for  our  generation  to  pass  judgment  upon 
what  was  regarded  as  saintliness  four  hundred  years  ago; 
for  very  much  of  what  in  those  days  to  passionate  pil¬ 
grims,  trudging  through  the  valley  of  preparation,  seemed 
a  sort  of  solemn  ritual,  to  us  looks  fanatical,  or  even,  sup¬ 
posing  that  we  lack  imaginative  sympathy,  childish  and 
silly.  What  was  once  a  language  of  palpitating  emotion  is 
now  no  more  than  a  series  of  fantastic  hieroglyphs.  In 
this  case,  strange  doings  went  on  among  the  students  of  the 
newly  founded,  and  highly  successful,  Jesuit  College  at 
Coimbra.  I  will  set  forth  the  facts  as  they  appeared  to 
the  principal  of  the  college,  Father  Martin  Santa  Cruz. 
The  following  letter  was  written  by  his  secretary : 

To  Father  Peter  Favre 

Coimbra,  August,  1545. 

May  Jesus  Christ  keep  you. 

Father  Santa  Cruz  being  too  busy  to  write  as  fully  to  you 
as  he  wished,  has  bidden  me  write  on  his  behalf,  to  give  you 
an  account  of  some  things  that  have  taken  place  among  us 
here  concerning  mortifications  and  exercises  in  humility 
that  some  brothers  of  this  college  have  performed,  in  part 
with  permission  of  Father  Rodriguez,  who  was  with  us  at 
that  time,  and  also  in  part  by  his  express  command. 

The  beginning  of  these  things  was  in  this  wise.  Antonio 
Figueredo  [one  of  the  students]  got  the  idea  of  carrying 
into  the  lecture  room  a  dead  man’s  skull,  which  Cardoso 
[another  student]  had  in  his  room.  Figueredo  felt  some 
repugnance  to  do  this  because  of  the  shame  involved,  but 
out  of  a  wish  to  overcome  that  feeling,  after  consulting 
Christopher  Leyton  [also  a  student],  he  took  the  skull  into 
class,  put  it  in  front  of  him  on  a  bench,  and  remained  gazing 


PORTUGAL 


237 


at  it  for  the  two  hours  while  the  lesson  lasted,  in  presence 
of  everybody.  When  Father  Rodriguez  got  home,  as  this 
had  been  done  without  his  permission,  he  ordered  both  him 
and  Christopher  Leyton,  who  had  assented  to  the  plan,  to 
take  the  death’s  head  and  go  to  Figueredo’s  mother’s  house, 
in  the  city,  and  tell  her  on  their  knees  the  whole  story,  ask¬ 
ing  forgiveness  for  the  shame  her  son  had  brought  upon  her. 
When  they  came  back,  after  doing  as  they  had  been  told, 
they  found  that  they  were  not  allowed  to  enter,  so  both  sat 
down  in  the  street  near  the  door,  where  they  stayed  till  near 
dark,  when  the  Rector  of  the  University,  on  his  way  home, 
espied  them  sitting  on  the  ground.  Guessing  what  the 
trouble  was,  he  sent  his  chaplain  to  Father  Rodriguez,  to 
say  that  he  had  no  doubt  that  the  men  deserved  to  stay 
there  for  some  fault  they  had  committed,  but,  as  this  was 
the  first  favor  he  had  asked,  perhaps  he  might  consent  to 
pardon  them,  and  that  he  himself  was  much  edified  to  have 
seen  them  in  this  plight.  Father  Rodriguez  forgave  them, 
and  sent  the  Rector  word  by  the  same  chaplain  of  his  reason 
for  forbidding  them  to  come  in. 

An  order  was  given  to  all  the  brothers  not  to  speak  to 
them  until  they  received  permission  to  do  so,  and  so  the 
two  were  for  several  days  without  a  word  from  anybody. 
One  day  Figueredo  entered  the  refectory  while  the  brothers 
were  at  dinner,  barefoot,  bare-headed,  with  his  hands  tied 
and  a  cord  round  his  neck,  and  his  tongue  tied  by  the  same 
cord  between  two  sticks.  Father  Rodriguez  bade  him  leave 
the  room  because  he  had  come  in  such  a  fashion  without 
permission.  That  same  day,  at  supper,  Christopher  Leyton 
(who  had  approved  of  taking  the  skull  into  the  lecture 
room)  started  to  come  into  the  refectory,  stripped  to  the 
waist,  scourge  in  hand,  barefoot,  and  a  rope  round  his  neck. 
As  soon  as  he  saw  him,  Father  Rodriguez  sent  him  back,  be¬ 
cause  he  acted  without  permission.  They  invented  these 
acts  of  penitence  in  order  that  Father  Rodriguez  should  per¬ 
mit  conversation  again  with  the  brothers. 

The  letter  goes  on  to  tell  of  a  young  musician,  who  had 
been  rejected  by  Father  Rodriguez  because  of  his  feeble  con- 


238 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


stitution.  Many  religious  organizations  were  eager  to  re¬ 
ceive  him  for  his  musical  talents,  but  he  had  a  pious  desire 
to  go  where  such  talents  were  not  valued;  and,  therefore, 
in  the  hope  to  overcome  Father  Rodriguez’s  unwillingness, 
he  walked  all  through  the  town,  carrying  a  death’s  head, 
and  asking  the  crowd  of  boys  who  followed  him  please  to 
kick  him  or  throw  stones  at  him.  This  conduct  effected  his 
purpose;  he  was  admitted  to  the  Jesuit  college,  where,  in¬ 
stead  of  touching  musical  keys,  he  handled  heavy  logs,  and 
burned  his  fingers  cooking.  Other  students  went  upon 
menial  errands,  bare-headed,  in  ragged  clothes,  or  with 
neither  cloak  nor  shoes,  and  did  other  unconventional 
things.  For  instance,  one  student  lost  a  shoe  in  the  street, 
and  went  back  crying  out,  “Who  has  found  a  shoe?”  Others 
went  round  the  streets,  ringing  a  bell  and  shouting:  “Hell 
for  all  those  who  are  in  mortal  sin!”  Others  carried  bas¬ 
kets,  begging  for  victuals,  till  the  town  officers  hurried  up 
to  relieve  such  destitution.  One  Sunday  ten  or  twelve  stu¬ 
dents  went  through  the  town,  ringing  a  bell,  and  yelling: 
“Sinners,  depart  from  sin;  for  ye  must  die!”  And  once 
while  the  brothers  sat  at  dinner  Father  Rodriguez  sent  one 
of  them  to  the  church  for  holy  water;  the  brother  fetched 
it  and  then  walked  round  the  table,  saying  Miserere  mei, 
and  sprinkled  all  the  brothers  one  by  one.  And  again,  one 
brother,  in  the  middle  of  dinner,  having  been  told  to  do  so 
by  Father  Rodriguez,  gave  a  great  slap  on  the  table  saying, 
Conclusum  est  contra  manicheos ,  and  started  an  argument. 
And,  to  give  a  final  instance,  a  lad  from  the  college  went  to 
the  square,  and  there,  half  naked,  tied  himself  to  a  pillar, 
and  stood  for  some  time,  crying  out,  “0  Lord  Jesus,  who  for 
our  sins  wast  tied  to  a  pillar  in  Pilate’s  house,  forgive  the 
sins  of  this  city!” 

The  writer  adds  that  some  people  murmured  at  some 
of  these  proceedings,  but  refrains  from  all  comment  him¬ 
self.  Rodriguez  was  the  superior  of  Father  Santa  Cruz,  and 
any  criticism  would  have  been  improper.  However,  as  the 
letter  was  written  at  about  the  time  when  Ignatius,  troubled 
by  reports  from  Portugal,  had  arranged  matters  so  that 
Rodriguez — ostensibly  for  other  reasons— should  go  to 


PORTUGAL 


239 


Rome,  it  seems  plain  that  Santa  Cruz  was  quite  out  of  sym¬ 
pathy  with  these  novel  methods  of  self-mortification.  He 
was  not  alone  in  this  opinion.  A  Flemish  Father  at  the 
College,  also  wrote  Lefevre  a  long  letter  to  tell  him  the 
same  story. 

That  these  extravagances  were,  in  part  at  least,  the  causes 
of  the  complaints  against  Rodriguez,  is  plain  from  a  letter 
that  he  wrote  some  time  afterwards  to  Ignatius,  explaining 
the  disagreement  between  himself  and  Santa  Cruz,  Strada, 
and  Lefevre,  who  all  disapproved  of  the  extreme  mortifica¬ 
tions  that  the  students  at  Coimbra  put  upon  themselves. 
Rodriguez  maintained  that  the  Society  was  founded  on  con¬ 
tempt  for  the  world,  that  it  was  necessary  to  be  fools  for 
Christ’s  sake,  and  to  wish  for  the  world’s  derision,  for  “God 
hath  chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
wise,  and  the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
things  which  are  mighty;  and  base  things  of  the  world,  and 
things  which  are  despised  hath  God  chosen”  (1  Cor.  I,  27, 
28).  For  this  reason  he  had  bidden  the  students  despise 
the  world,  and  to  undergo  hardships  and  mortifications,  that 
would  increase  their  strength.  As  a  consequence  there  was 
intense  fervor  among  the  students, — they  were  like  lions — • 
such  as  there  had  been  among  the  disciples  of  Christ  at 
Pentecost.  Certainly,  he  says,  it  is  far  more  in  accordance 
with  the  flesh  to  give  up  such  self-mortification  than  to  sub¬ 
mit  to  it,  and  yet,  nevertheless,  the  superiors  of  the  College 
(his  critics)  have  greater  trouble  to  stop  the  students  than 
to  incite  them  to  it.  Santa  Cruz  and  Strada  are  fearful  lest 
the  college  be  misjudged  and  disapproved  of.  “I  cite  St. 
Francis  (he  says) ;  Strada  answers  that  'St.  Francis  acted 
under  a  special  inspiration  from  God,  and  that  these  prac¬ 
tices  will  do  when  another  St.  Francis  comes,  or  God  grants 
a  fresh  inspiration.’  The  influence  of  Strada  and  Lefevre 
has  cooled  the  fine  fervor,  and  so  jactum  est  proelium  mag¬ 
num  in  the  college.  Strada  says  that  there  are  more  morti¬ 
fications  in  Portugal  than  the  first  Fathers  ever  suffered, 
and  Santa  Cruz  quotes  Lefevre  that  our  mortifications 
mortify  him  in  Castile.  ‘El  inimigo  sembro  esta  mala 
simiente’  (It  is  the  Devil  that  sows  this  seed.)”  He  adds 


240 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


that  he  has  made  Luis  Gonzalez  de  Camara  rector,  and  con¬ 
cludes  by  asking  Ignatius  to  write  his  opinion.  This 
Ignatius  did,  and  the  letter  is  an  admirable  exposition  of  his 
method  of  procedure. 

The  case  was  difficult.  Rodriguez  was  one  of  the 
primeros  padres,  he  had  the  favor  of  the  King  and  Queen, 
he  was  virtually  the  creator  of  the  college  in  question,  he 
was  a  man  of  peculiar  qualities,  full  of  zeal  and  self-confi¬ 
dence.  On  the  other  hand,  the  men  of  better  judgment 
were  opposed  to  him,  and  it  was  to  be  feared,  and  justly  as 
events  proved,  that  if  Rodriguez  were  given  a  free  hand  for 
his  extravagant  zeal,  he  would  look  upon  freedom  of  action 
as  his  right.  Here  is  Loyola’s  letter: 

To  the  Fathers  and  Brothers  at  Coimbra 

Rome,  May  7,  1547. 

May  the  grace  and  everlasting  love  of  Christ  our  Lord  be 
with  us  and  bless  us.  Amen. 

[Ignatius  begins  with  an  elaborate  prologue.  He  sets 
forth  his  deep  satisfaction  with  the  news  of  their  zeal  and 
desire  to  serve  the  Lord,  says  what  great  expectations  they 
have  raised,  and  yet  how  difficult  it  will  be  to  live  up  to 
them,  and  dwells  on  their  special  obligation  to  be  faithful 
and  diligent.]  And  above  all  I  should  wish  that  you  have 
no  motives  other  than  the  pure  love  of  Christ  and  desire 
for  His  honor  and  for  the  salvation  of  the  souls  that  He  re¬ 
deemed,  because  you  are  His  soldiers,  in  His  Company,  by 
a  special  title  and  with  special  pay.  I  say  special,  because 
there  are  many  general  reasons  that  oblige  you  to  render 
Him  honor  and  do  Him  service.  All  that  you  have  and  are, 
is  your  pay;  He  gave  you  life  and  being,  and  all  the  quali¬ 
ties  and  faculties  of  your  minds  and  bodies,  and  all  external 
things,  and  He  preserves  them.  Your  pay  is  the  spiritual 
gift  of  His  grace,  which  out  of  His  bounty  and  goodness  He 
has  conferred  on  you  and  continues  to  confer,  even  when 
you  are  disobedient  and  rebellious.  Your  pay  is  the  in¬ 
estimable  worth  of  His  glory,  which,  with  no  advantage  to 
Himself,  He  has  promised  you  and  has  prepared  for  you. 


PORTUGAL 


241 


.  .  .  Your  pay  is  all  the  universe  and  all  that  in  it  is,  cor¬ 
poreal  and  spiritual,  because  He  has  caused  to  minister 
unto  us  not  only  all  that  is  underneath  the  sky,  but  also  His 
most  glorious  court,  not  excepting  any  of  the  celestial 
hierarchy — ‘Are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits,  sent  forth 
to  minister  for  them  who  shall  be  heirs  of  salvation?'  (Heb. 
I,  14).  And  as  if  that  sum  of  wages  was  not  enough,  He 
made  Himself  your  pay,  becoming  our  brother  in  the  flesh, 
paying  for  our  salvation  on  the  cross,  and  by  the  eucharist, 
upholding  and  accompanying  our  pilgrimage.  What  a 
caitiff  soldier  must  he  be,  whom  such  wages  will  not  stir  to 
work  for  the  honor  of  such  a  Prince? 

[And  Loyola  continues  to  lay  solemn  emphasis  upon  the 
personal  debt  and  the  grave  responsibility  of  a  soldier  of 
Christ,  how  every  one  must  give  devoted,  unstinted,  un¬ 
measured,  service] : 

But  what  I  have  said  up  to  now  to  wake  up  them  that 
slumbered,  or  hurry  up  those  that  might  tarry  on  the  way, 
must  not  be  interpreted  as  an  approval  of  the  extreme  con¬ 
trary  of  indiscreet  fervor.  St.  Paul  says  (Rom.  XII,  1), 
‘Your  reasonable  service’  for  he  knew  that  the  psalmist’s 
words  were  true  (Psalm  CXVIII,  4)  ‘The  King’s  strength 
loveth  judgment ’  i.  e.  discretion,  and  also  that  which  is  said 
allegorically  in  Leviticus,  ‘Every  oblation  of  thy  meat  of¬ 
fering  shalt  thou  season  with  salt’  (II,  13).  And,  as  St. 
Bernard  says,  ‘The  enemy  has  no  contrivance  so  apt  to  take 
the  charity  from  the  heart,  as  pricking  it  on  to  proceed 
rashly  and  not  according  to  spiritual  reasonableness.’  The 
philosopher’s  counsel,  Ne  quid  nimis,  should  be  observed  in 
all  things,  even  in  matters  of  righteousness,  and  we  read  in 
Ecclesiastes,  Noli  esse  justus  nimium — Be  not  righteous 
overmuch  (VII,  16).  If  moderation  be  not  observed,  then 
good  is  turned  into  evil,  and  virtue  into  vice,  and  many 
unseemly  things  follow,  contrary  to  the  purpose  of  him 
that  oversteps. 

First.  One  cannot  serve  God  without  some  restraint;  a 
horse  exhausted  by  his  first  stages  cannot  finish  his  journey, 
and  others  have  to  take  care  of  him. 

Second.  That  which  is  gained  with  immoderate  eager- 


242 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


ness  is  not  kept,  as  the  Bible  says:  “Wealth  gotten  by 
vanity  shall  be  diminished”  (Prov.  XIII,  11).  And  not 
only  is  it  diminished,  but  it  is  a  stumbling  matter:  “He 
that  hasteneth  with  his  feet,  sinneth”  (Prov.  XIX,  2),  and 
if  he  falls,  the  greater  the  height  the  greater  the  danger,  for 
he  will  not  stop  till  he  reach  the  bottom  of  the  stairs. 

Third.  Avoid  the  risk  of  overloading  your  boat;  for 
though  it  be  dangerous  to  take  it  empty,  for  it  will  flounder 
about  amid  temptations,  do  not  load  it  so  that  it  shall  sink. 

Fourth.  It  may  come  about,  that  in  crucifying  the  old 
man,  you  crucify  the  new,  so  that  from  sheer  weakness  he 
cannot  practise  the  virtues.  .  .  . 

Besides,  there  are  other  inconveniences,  such  as  carrying 
weapons  so  heavy  that  you  cannot  use  them,  as  David  with 
Saul’s  armor;  or  putting  on  spurs,  but  no  bridle,  to  ride  a 
fiery  horse.  So  you  see  that  discretion  is  necessary,  in 
order  to  keep  virtuous  practices  between  the  two  extremes. 

And  after  quoting  various  proverbial  sayings,  such  as 
Spaniards  delighted  in,  Ignatius  continues:  “I  would  not 
have  you  think  from  the  things  I  have  just  written,  that  I 
do  not  approve  of  what  has  been  told  me  of  your  mortifica¬ 
tions;  for  I  know  that  the  saints  made  use  of  such,  and  of 
other  holy  follies  (locuras  sanctas),  to  their  advantage,  and 
that  they  are  useful  in  order  to  overcome  self  and  acquire 
grace,  especially  in  the  beginning;  but  for  those  who  have 
most  control  over  self-love,  what  I  have  written  concerning 
the  middle  way  of  discretion,  I  hold  to  be  the  better  course* 
not  forgetting  obedience,  which  I  commend  to  you  most 
earnestly,  and  that  summary  of  all  virtue,  which  Jesus 
Christ  enjoins  ‘This  is  my  Commandment,  that  ye  love  one 
another’  ”  (St.  John,  XV,  12).  And  he  concludes  with  the 
general  rule  that  the  way  to  help  one’s  fellows  is  to  practise 
virtue  and  set  an  example  of  a  truly  Christian  life. 

I  do  not  think  that  rebuke  could  be  expressed  more  tact¬ 
fully  or  more  kindly,  than  in  this  letter.  Rodriguez,  how¬ 
ever,  did  not  profit  by  it  as  he  should  have  done.  His  be¬ 
haviour  caused  much  dissatisfaction,  and  he  was  finally 


PORTUGAL 


243 


recalled  and  sent  into  a  sort  of  exile  near  Venice.  This  is  a 
lamentable  episode,  which  I  need  not  expatiate  upon;  and, 
after  all,  it  was  but  an  episode  in  a  long  life,  dedicated  to 
the  service  of  what  he  believed  to  be  the  cause  of 
righteousness. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


SPAIN  AND  FRANCE 

Before  the  charter  was  granted  Ignatius  had  established 
the  headquarters  of  the  Society  in  Rome,  and  he  himself 
always  lived  there,  never  going  away,  except  for  exceedingly 
brief  absences,  such  as  a  visit  to  the  Pope  at  Tivoli,  all  his 
life.  From  the  very  first  he  had  an  unbounded  faith  in  the 
future  of  the  Society — Romce  Ego  vobis  propitius  ero  al¬ 
ways  rang  in  his  ears — and,  as  a  consequence,  he  never 
entertained  the  thought  of  establishing  its  seat  of  govern¬ 
ment  in  any  place  but  Rome,  the  capital  of  Christendom, 
the  abode  of  the  Supreme  Pontiff.  In  Rome  he  had  many 
local  duties,  but  I  shall  defer  an  account  of  them,  until  I 
shall  have  completed  my  little  sketch  of  the  beginnings  of 
the  Society  in  Europe  and  across  the  seas. 

To  my  mind  the  most  brilliant  achievement  of  these  First 
Fathers  was  in  Spain;  Xavier’s  mission  in  India  and  Japan 
impresses  the  imagination  more,  but  his  heroic  labors  se¬ 
cured  much  less  solid  and  permanent  results.  It  is  charac¬ 
teristic  of  Ignatius  that  he  did  not  launch  the  Spanish 
campaign  until  chance  circumstances  had  given  the  Society 
a  foothold  there;  this  was  partly  because  the  Fathers  had 
their  hands  full  with  what  they  had  to  do  in  Italy,  Ger¬ 
many,  and  elsewhere,  and  it  was  not  Loyola’s  way  to 
undertake  more  than  he  was  likely  to  accomplish;  and 
partly,  because  he  waited  for  some  sign  that  he  could  in¬ 
terpret  as  the  finger  of  God  pointing  to  what  he  should  do. 
Perhaps  his  mind  lacked  inventiveness,  did  not  prowl  about 
to  find  new  matter  for  thought  and  action,  but  lay  couchant 
waiting  for  opportunity  to  come  in  its  way.  It  was  so  with 
the  missions  to  Portugal  and  India.  However,  as  soon  as 
first  one,  and  then  a  second,  Jesuit  happened  to  go  to  Spain, 

244 


SPAIN  AND  FRANCE 


245 


and  reported  that  the  harvest  was  ripe  for  the  reapers, 
Ignatius  directed  the  campaign  with  the  foresight  and  thor¬ 
oughness  that  were  the  two  wings  of  his  genius.  He  under¬ 
stood  better  than  anybody  else  that  the  surest  way  to  beat 
back  heretics  to  the  north  and  infidels  to  the  east,  was  not 
to  send  theologians,  preachers,  or  missionaries  to  the  con¬ 
fines  of  Catholic  Christendom  where  the  enemy  were, 
though  that  was  well,  but  rather  to  rouse  the  enthusiasm 
and  resolution  of  the  faithful  to  the  fighting  pitch  through¬ 
out  the  length  and  breadth  of  Catholic  lands.  Then,  as 
now,  international  issues  were  to  be  determined  by  the  faith 
and  pertinacity  of  the  populations  at  home.  If  the  Roman 
Church  was  to  maintain  itself  against  the  Teutonic  rebels, 
it  needs  must  draw  upon  stores  of  religious  energy  in  the 
Latin  lands  and  chiefly  in  Spain,  which,  flushed  with  adven¬ 
ture  and  self-confidence,  was  ready  to  answer  the  call  of 
any  leader  that  should  touch  her  imagination.  As 
Menendez  y  Pelayo  says,  Spain  put  herself  at  the  head  of 
the  Catholic  party,  and  kept  back  the  northern  flood  within 
the  dykes  that  it  has  never  passed ;  and  it  would  be  rash  to 
deny  that  the  Jesuits  are  entitled  to  the  lion’s  share  of  the 
credit  for  her  doing  so. 

The  chance  circumstances  to  which  I  alluded  are  these: 
A  young  relation  of  Loyola’s,  Antonio  de  Araoz,  who  had 
recently  joined  the  Society,  went  to  Spain  in  the  year  1539, 
to  attend  to  some  family  matters.  Loyola  undoubtedly 
gave  him  instructions,  bade  him  reconnoitre  the  ground  and 
report  his  observations.  Two  years  later  Dr.  Ortiz  had 
occasion  to  go  from  Germany  back  to  Spain  on  some  ecclesi¬ 
astical  matters,  and  took  Pierre  Lefevre  with  him.  These 
were  the  haphazard  causes  that  laid  the  first  foundation  for 
the  Jesuit  missions  in  Spain.  Both  Fathers  were  highly 
accomplished  missionaries;  they  knew  their  business,  and 
faithfully  followed  Loyola’s  tactics.  They  preached,  they 
heard  confession,  they  visited  the  sick,  they  gave  the 
Spiritual  Exercises,  and,  where  it  was  possible,  they  made 
friends  with  people  of  importance.  Ignatius  never  lost 
sight  of  the  fact  that  power,  position,  and  wealth  are  potent 
factors  for  good  as  well  as  for  evil,  and  always  took  the 


246 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


greatest  pains,  and  charged  his  disciples  to  do  the  same,  to 
win  the  favor  and  assistance  of  princes  and  noblemen.  I 
shall  not  recount  the  doings  of  Father  Araoz  and  Father 
Lefevre  in  Spain,  or  of  their  comrades  and  followers.  The 
directing  mind  of  Loyola  was  always  there;  his  will  was 
their  North  Star.  One  fact  deserves  to  be  recorded,  be¬ 
cause  it  shows  how  soon  Loyola’s  reputation  had  reached 
his  native  province.  When  Araoz  went  to  Azpeitia  to 
preach,  the  people  flocked  in  multitudes  from  all  the  villages 
roundabout  to  hear  him,  the  church  could  not  hold  a  tithe 
of  the  congregation.  A  pulpit  was  set  up  in  the  open,  and 
listeners  climbed  into  trees  and  on  the  roofs  of  houses. 

Araoz  and  Lefevre  led  the  way,  but  new  members,  Nadal 
Villanueva,  Miron,  Oviedo,  and  others,  ably  seconded  them. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  within  fifteen  years,  in  Loyola’s  own 
lifetime,  colleges  had  been  founded,  most  of  them  no  doubt 
in  a  small  way,  at  Alcala,  Valladolid,  Valencia,  Gandia, 
Barcelona,  Salamanca,  Medina  del  Campo,  Onato,  Cordoba, 
Avila,  Burgos,  Zaragoza,  and  elsewhere.  This,  extraor¬ 
dinary  success  was  due  to  several  co-operating  causes:  the 
directing  genius  of  Ignatius;  the  zeal,  devotion,  tact  and 
ability  of  the  missionaries;  the  favor  of  princes;  the  acces¬ 
sion  of  Francis  Borgia,  duke  of  Gandia;  and  the  tempera¬ 
mental  ardor  of  the  Spanish  people  that  to  so  great  an  extent 
found  its  outlet  in  religion. 

Francis  Borgia  was  one  of  the  principal  nobles  of  Aragon, 
great-grandson  to  Rodrigo  Borgia  (Pope  Alexander  VI,  the 
father  of  Csesar  and  Lucretia,)  and  also  to  King  Ferdinand, 
the  husband  of  Queen  Isabella.  No  Spanish  lineage  could 
be  more  illustrious.  He  was  a  serious,  pious,  hard-working, 
painstaking,  conscientious  man.  On  the  death  of  his  wife, 
he  laid  aside  his  dukedom,  and  asking  Lefevre’s  advice,  de¬ 
cided  to  become  a  Jesuit.  It  was  a  great  day  for  the  young 
Order  when  the  descendant  of  a  line  of  kings  dismounted  at 
its  house  in  Rome  and  took  up  his  lodgings  there.  He 
stayed  three  months,  “in  deep  humility  and  self-abnegation, 
and  in  complete  obedience  and  reverence  to  Padre  Ignacio” ; 
and  when  Ignatius  dined  in  his  apartment,  he  waited  on 
the  table,  serving  the  meats  and  pouring  the  wine,  and  he 


SPAIN  AND  FRANCE 


247 


proposed  to  wash  the  dishes,  but  Ignatius  interfered.  His 
conversion  is  evidence  of  the  religious  ardor  of  the  Spanish 
people  at  this  time,  which,  as  I  have  said,  favored  the 
Jesuits  so  greatly.  But  before  dropping  the  subject  of 
Spain  and  passing  on  to  France,  I  shall  cite  another  instance 
of  this  religious  ardor,  more  celebrated  even  than  Borgia’s. 

I  quote  from  St.  Theresa’s  autobiography,  for  her  Jesuit 
confessors  serve  to  connect  her  with  the  Society.  She  was  a 
genius  and  of  an  emotional  sensibility  far  beyond  ordinary 
people ;  nevertheless,  the  intensity  of  her  feelings  will  serve 
as  an  index  to  show  how  deeply  religious  a  society  must 
have  been  in  order  to  provide  a  soil  in  which  such  feelings 
could  germinate  and  find  superabundant  nutriment.  At 
this  time  she  was  a  woman  of  thirty.  I  take  the  following 
passage  from  her  own  account  of  what  she  felt  when  she 
entered  the  Carmelite  order  some  ten  years  before: 

The  day  I  put  on  the  nun’s  dress,  God  enlightened  me 
with  a  refulgent  light;  I  understood  how  much  He  favors 
those  who  conquer  themselves  in  order  to  serve  Him.  .  .  . 
A  happiness  so  pure  flowed  over  my  soul  that  nothing  has 
ever  been  able  to  dry  it  up.  .  .  .  All  the  practices  of  re¬ 
ligious  life  became  a  source  of  delight  to  me.  .  .  .  Even  in 
this  life  the  Divine  Master  is  pleased  to  repay  a  great  cour¬ 
age  in  His  service  by  intimate  joys,  known  only  to  the  souls 
that  taste  their  ineffable  sweetness.  ...  At  the  end  of  nine 
months,  Our  Lord,  not  content  with  the  delights  He  had 
accorded  me,  deigned  to  lift  me  up  to  the  orison  of  con¬ 
templation,  and  sometimes  even  to  the  orison  of  union.  .  .  . 
I  was  not  twenty  years  old,  and  yet  I  trampled  down  under 
my  feet,  methought,  a  conquered  world.  .  .  .  Here  is  my 
way  of  praying.  I  tried,  all  I  could,  to  consider  with  atten¬ 
tive  sight,  our  Master  Jesus  Christ,  as  present  in  the  back¬ 
ground  of  my  soul.  Whenever  I  meditated  upon  a  mystery 
in  His  life,  I  pictured  it  in  this  inner  shrine.  .  .  .  However 
defective  and  imperfect  were  my  works,  my  adorable  Master 
deigned  to  better  them,  and  give  them  worth.  As  to  my 
faults  and  sins,  He  hastened  to  throw  a  veil  over  them.  .  .  . 
At  that  time  my  soul  habitually  enjoyed  an  intoxicating 


248 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


delight  in  God,  and  my  sweetest  pleasure — the  only  subject 
of  my  conversation — was  to  talk  of  Him. 

The  success  of  the  Jesuits,  however,  was  not  obtained 
without  great  opposition.  Melchior  Cano,  the  Dominican 
professor  at  Salamanca,  with  whom  Lainez  afterwards,  at 
the  Council  of  Trent,  lost  his  temper,  was  the  most  violent. 
The  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  Primate  of  Spain,  was  also  very 
down  on  them.  The  real  reason  for  this  opposition  was 
jealousy  and  Spanish  conservatism;  but  there  may  also 
have  been  some  truth  in  the  ostensible  reasons  put  forward. 
Adversaries  said  that  the  Jesuits  introduced  innovations; 
that  they  condemned  other  Orders,  at  least  by  implication, 
in  that  they  did  not  adopt  a  distinctive  dress,  as  other 
Orders  did,  and  did  not  deign  to  receive  monks  from  other 
Orders;  that  they  did  not  celebrate  the  musical  service  as 
all  other  Orders  did;  that  they  arrogantly  assumed  the 
name  of  Jesus,  as  if  it  were  personal  to  themselves;  that 
they  omitted  or  skimped  corporal  penance — this  sounds  like 
an  odd  accusation,  and  is  probably  one  of  the  reasons  why 
Jesuit  biographies  are  so  full  of  flagellations,  vigils,  fasts, 
etc. — that  they  refused  ecclesiastical  dignities,  that  they 
taught  suspicious  spiritual  exercises,  and  so  forth. 

The  Society  had  powerful  friends  and  proved  too  strong 
for  professor  and  Primate.  I  shall  say  no  more  of  these 
troubles  except  to  quote  from  a  letter  that  Ignatius  wrote 
to  the  Archbishop,  after  the  latter  had  given  way,  for  it 
shows  how  courteous,  almost  subservient,  his  manners  were 
in  dealing  with  persons  in  high  place  who  had  power  to 
help  or  hinder  the  work  of  the  Society.  It  was  a  definite 
part  of  his  policy — based  perhaps  on  a  sense  of  Christian 
duty,  but  as  to  that  I  do  not  feel  clear — to  do  all  he  could, 
after  a  quarrel,  to  prevent  leaving  wounded  feelings  behind, 
and,  more  than  that,  to  turn  his  old  adversary  into  a  new 
friend.  Let  me  caution  the  reader  against  imagining  that 
there  is  any  irony  or  sarcasm  in  these  mellifluous  sentences : 

Rome,  June  1,  1552. 
My  very  illustrious  and  reverend  Lord : 

.  .  .  Although  it  is  a  new  thing  for  me  to  write  to  your 


SPAIN  AND  FRANCE 


249 


Lordship,  it  should  not  be  a  new  thing  for  any  one  to  feel 
and  to  show  gratitude  for  favors  received,  and  as  I  have 
learned  of  those  that  your  Lordship  bestowed  upon  our 
humble  Society  a  little  while  ago,  I  not  only  hold  myself 
deeply  obliged  to  ask  the  Divine  Goodness  to  reward  them 
with  a  very  generous  and  everlasting  reward;  but  it  also 
seems  to  me  my  duty  while  writing,  I  do  not  say  to  give 
thanks,  for  I  leave  that  to  God’s  love,  but  rather  to  show  to 
your  Lordship  that  you  have  not  done  those  favors  to  un¬ 
grateful  men.  And  though  there  is  little  that  our  poor 
Order  can  do  for  one  whom  God  has  raised  to  so  high  an 
estate  in  His  Church,  nevertheless  I  beseech  your  Lordship 
to  consider  us  all  as  wholly  devoted  to  you  in  the  Lord,  and 
to  make  use  of  us  as  such  for  the  greater  glory  of  His  divine 
majesty.  And  in  token  that  we  consider  your  Lordship  our 
lord  and  father,  and  always  shall,  I  am  writing  to  our 
brothers  there,  not  to  admit,  either  in  Alcala  or  anywhere 
else  in  Spain,  anybody  to  our  Society  who  is  not  satisfactory 
to  your  Lordship,  and  although  the  Apostolic  See  has 
granted  us  many  privileges  in  order  to  aid  souls,  I  am  also 
writing  not  to  make  use  of  those  privileges  except  so  far  as 
your  Lordship  shall  think  we  had  better  do  so  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  helping  you  carry  some  little  portion  of  the  heavy 
load  that  God  has  laid  upon  your  Lordship.  For  as  I  at¬ 
tribute  the  dealings  that  passed  between  us  before  you  were 
informed  of  our  ways  and  proceedings,  to  your  Lordship’s 
great  zeal  for  God’s  service,  so,  now  that  you  are  informed,  I 
am  persuaded  that  your  Lordship  will  be  our  protector  and 
father,  etc.,  etc. 

Your  Lordship’s  humble  servant  in  the  Lord, 

Ignatius. 

In  France  the  Society  was  slow,  at  least  in  comparison 
with  its  success  in  Spain,  to  gain  a  foothold.  The  antago¬ 
nism  between  the  two  countries  was  largely  responsible  for 
this;  but  also,  as  I  have  said,  Loyola’s  policy  was  to  refrain 
from  the  initiative.  He  preferred  to  wait  for  Providence  to 
lead  the  way.  At  first  his  disciples  went  to  Paris  solely  for 
the  sake  of  study.  Don  Diego  Eguia  conducted  a  small 


250 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


company  of  young  men  there  in  the  spring  of  1540;  others 
soon  joined  them.  Some  of  them  became  conspicuous  in 
the  early  history  of  the  Order,  Diego  Miron,  Francisco  de 
Rojas,  Francisco  and  Antonio  Estrada,  and  Pedro  de  Ri- 
badeneira,  a  lad  of  fifteen,  who  afterwards  wrote  Loyola’s 
life.  These  students  were  very  poor,  and  had  to  eke  out 
what  funds  could  be  spared  for  their  use,  with  scholarships 
and  odds  and  ends  of  charity.  They  entered  the  College  of 
the  Lombards,  where  poor  Italians  were  received  gratis,  and 
“the  Italian  charity  pensioners  [I  quote  this  in  fulfillment 
of  my  promise  to  repeat  whatever  instances  of  dissimulation 
I  may  come  across]  took  the  others  into  their  rooms  as 
fellow  lodgers,  without  letting  the  outside  students  know 
that  they  belonged  to  a  religious  order.”  They  had  not 
been  settled  in  this  college  a  year  when  war  again  broke  out 
between  Francis  I  and  the  Emperor,  and  the  Spanish 
students  either  were  obliged,  or  found  it  prudent,  to  make 
haste  across  the  border  into  Belgium,  where  they  founded 
a  Jesuit  community  at  Louvain. 

The  real  beginning  of  the  establishment  in  France  took 
place  at  Trent,  where  Guillaume  Duprat,  bishop  of  Cler¬ 
mont,  made  the  acquaintance  of  Father  Jay,  as  well  as  of 
Lainez  and  Salmeron.  Everybody  who  met  Claude  Jay, 
perceived  that  he  was  a  saint.  He  told  Duprat  about  the 
Society,  and  of  its  students  who  desired  to  get  a  theological 
education,  and  Duprat  put  a  house  in  Paris  at  their  disposi¬ 
tion,  and  thus  started  the  College  of  Clermont.  Later,  the 
bishop  founded  another  college  at  the  University  of  Billon 
in  Auvergne.  Another,  and  perhaps  no  less  significant,  con¬ 
sequence  of  the  bishop’s  good  graces  was  the  advice  that 
Loyola  should  make  the  acquaintance  of  Charles  de  Guise, 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  who  went  to  Rome  to  attend  the  con¬ 
clave  on  the  death  of  Paul  III.  Ignatius,  as  I  have  said, 
always  grasped  the  opportunity  which  a  favoring  Provi¬ 
dence,  or  kindly  chance,  extended.  He  went  to  pay  his  re¬ 
spects;  the  call  was  returned,  and  the  Cardinal  promised 
to  be  the  protector  of  the  Order  in  France.  There  was  great 
need  of  powerful  protection.  The  bishop  of  Paris,  Eustache 
du  Bellay,  cousin  of  Cardinal  Jean  du  Bellay,  the  Sorbonne, 


SPAIN  AND  FRANCE 


251 


and  the  Parlement,  were  united  in  opposition.  The  Society- 
tried  in  vain  for  years  to  obtain  legal  sanction.  The  Sor- 
bonne  said: 

This  new  Society,  which  has  assumed  the  name  of  Jesus, 
and  takes  in  without  discrimination  all  sorts  of  people,  no 
matter  whether  they  are  criminals,  bastards,  or  infamous, 
.  .  .  seems  to  wrong  the  honor  of  the  monastic  profession; 
it  takes  all  the  strength  out  of  the  laborious,  pious  and  most 
necessary,  practice  of  the  virtues,  out  of  abstinence,  out  of 
ritual,  and  of  austerity;  it  deprives  lords  ecclesiastical  and 
lords  temporal  of  their  rights,  and  causes  vexation  to  both  ; 
it  breeds  law-suits,  disputes,  quarrels,  jealousies,  separa¬ 
tions,  and  schisms.  ...  It  appears  to  be  a  source  of  danger 
in  the  matter  of  Faith,  disturbs  the  peace  of  the  Church, 
hurts  the  monastic  profession,  and  is  more  apt  to  destroy 
than  to  edify. 

This  decree  was  a  hard  blow.  Several  younger  members 
of  the  Society  in  Rome, — Nadal,  Olave  and  Frusio, — were 
outraged  and  indignant ;  they  were  hot  to  publish  an  angry 
denial  of  these  charges,  and  fell  to  discussing  who  should 
write  it.  They  reckoned  without  their  host.  Ignatius 
would  not  hear  of  any  such  thing.  One  always  finds  him 
with  the  double  aspect  of  Christian  charity  and  worldly 
prudence,  always  obedient  to  both  clauses  of  Christ’s  in¬ 
junction:  “Be  ye  wise  as  serpents,  harmless  as  doves.”  He 
used  to  say:  “It  is  better  not  to  write  words  that  bite.” 
When  the  hot  heads  crowded  about  him,  he  quoted  the 
gospel:  “My  peace  I  give  you,  my  peace  I  leave  you,”  and 
said  how  much  he  disapproved  of  the  passions  and  hard 
feelings  that  were  sown  by  books  and  pamphlets,  and  did 
not  think  that  the  Society  should  defend  itself  in  any  such 
fashion,  nor  was  it  prudent  to  get  into  permanent  disfavor 
with  the  University.  Even  when  somebody  suggested  that 
it  would  be  well  to  write  a  friendly  letter,  and  that  some 
graduate  of  the  University  should  be  the  writer,  Ignatius 
thought  it  better  not.  He  told  Ribadeneira  afterwards, 
that  with  God’s  grace  the  Society  would  live  long,  and  that 


252 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


the  University  of  Paris  was  eternal  and  of  great  authority, 
and  it  would  not  be  well  to  build  up  a  perpetual  enmity  be¬ 
tween  the  Society  and  the  University.  The  vindication  he 
had  in  mind,  was  to  write  to  all  the  members  of  the 
Society,  stationed  all  over,  wherever  they  were,  without  tell¬ 
ing  the  reason,  and  bid  them  request  kings,  princes,  digni¬ 
taries,  spiritual  and  temporal,  and  the  universities,  to  col¬ 
lect  information  concerning  the  lives  and  conduct  of  the 
members  of  the  Society  in  their  respective  domains,  and  to 
certify  under  seal  whatever  reports  they  received,  whether 
to  the  credit  of  the  Society  or  not,  and  to  send  such  reports 
to  the  General  of  the  Order,  and  that  when  those  docu¬ 
ments  came,  he  would  submit  them  to  the  Pope  (for  the 
Pope  was  concerned  in  the  matter  since  he  had  confirmed 
the  Society  and  granted  it  privileges),  and  then  it  would 
appear  which  was  of  greater  weight,  the  decree  of  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Paris  or  the  concordant  testimony  of  all  the 
world. 

So  it  was  done.  Kings,  dukes,  archbishops,  bishops,  in¬ 
quisitors,  magistrates  and  universities,  sent  in  most  flatter¬ 
ing  reports,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  mighty  volume,  Acta 
Sanctorum,  VII  Julii.  And  in  due  time,  but  not  till  years 
after  Loyola’s  death,  the  Society  triumphed  over  its  enemies 
and  obtained  whatever  legal  authority  was  necessary  for  it 
in  France. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


AT  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT 

An  important  episode  in  the  early  history  of  the  Society 
was  its  participation  in  the  Council  of  Trent.  This  famous 
assembly,  after  many  vain  discussions  and  proposals,  finally 
met  together  in  1545,  and  formally  opened  its  proceedings 
in  the  month  of  December.  The  first  demand  for  it  had 
come  from  Luther  when  he  was  condemned  at  the  Diet  of 
Augsburg,  and  since  then  requests,  appeals,  supplications 
had  been  addressed  to  Pope  and  Emperor  from  all  over 
Christendom.  At  first  the  gravity  of  the  Lutheran  move¬ 
ment  was  not  understood,  and  pious  people  had  no  doubt 
that  if  an  ecumenical  council  would  reform  the  monastic 
orders,  check  the  sale  of  indulgences,  suppress  the  extor¬ 
tions  of  the  Roman  courts,  and  in  general  correct  the  most 
crying  abuses,  then  the  German  malcontents  would  return 
of  themselves.  But  the  Lutherans  attacked  dogmas  as  well 
as  ecclesiastical  practices,  and  it  became  evident  that  a 
council,  if  it  was  to  effect  a  reconciliation,  must  deal  with 
matters  of  creed  as  well  as  of  practices,  must  discover  some 
way  to  grant  a  certain  latitude  of  belief,  to  broaden  this 
doctrine,  modify  that,  and  leave  some  discretion  to  the  in¬ 
dividual  mind  and  conscience;  nevertheless,  hopeful  Catho¬ 
lics  continued  to  believe  that,  if  passion  and  prejudice  were 
laid  aside,  the  traditional  order  might  be  restored,  and  one 
flock  still  herd  together  under  one  shepherd.  But  for  any 
such  hopes  matters  had  gone  wrong  from  the  beginning. 
Passion  and  prejudice  were  not  laid  aside;  on  the  contrary 
they  grew  greater  and  more  violent.  And  yet  if  it  had  been 
possible  to  isolate  ecclesiastical  and  religious  questions  from 
politics,  compromise  and  reunion  might  perhaps  have  been 
accomplished;  but  politics  intermeddled  from  the  first. 
Charles  V,  good  Catholic  though  he  was,  thought  that  it 

253 


254  IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 

belonged  to  him  as  Emperor  to  decide  where  a  council 
should  be  held,  and  how;  nor  was  he  blind  to  the  political 
advantages  to  be  got  from  the  Lutheran  revolt  in  his  deal¬ 
ings  with  the  Pope,  and  therefore  wished  to  effect  the 
reconciliation  in  his  own  way.  The  King  of  France,  for  his 
part,  had  interests  at  stake;  the  preponderance  of  the  im¬ 
perial  power  was  a  cause  of  constant  solicitude,  and  he  op¬ 
posed  any  action  that  would  confer  upon  that  power  greater 
unity  and  strength.  His  policy  was  to  face  both  ways;  to 
aid  and  abet  the  Lutheran  princes  and  also  to  keep  friends 
with  the  Holy  See,  for  it  was  essential  to  have  the  papal 
support  in  his  struggle  with  the  Emperor  for  possession  of 
Milan.  This  double  dealing  was  a  delicate  matter,  and,  for 
the  most  part,  led  him  to  put  obstacles  in  the  way  of  a 
council,  openly  or  in  secret.  The  Protestant  princes,  when 
they  were  weak,  appealed  to  an  ecumenical  council;  but 
they  approached  the  matter  cautiously,  they  would  not  ac¬ 
cept  a  council  that  was  to  be  under  the  Pope’s  thumb,  and, 
as  an  essential  preliminary,  since  the  schism  was  a  German 
affair,  they  demanded  that  it  be  held  in  Germany.  Finally, 
when  they  found  themselves  strong  enough,  they  jeered  at 
all  the  Catholic  overtures.  Paul  III  also  was  on  his  guard. 
Although  a  grand  seigneur,  with  tastes  acquired  under  Alex¬ 
ander  VI  and  Leo  X,  and  hampered  by  a  passion  to  promote 
the  worldly  interests  of  his  grandchildren,  he  was  a  genuine 
reformer,  and  sought  to  promote  the  best  interests  of  re¬ 
ligion,  as  he  saw  it.  He  understood  the  situation  in  Ger¬ 
many  far  better  than  Clement  VII  had  done,  and  recognized 
that  sweeping  reforms  must  constitute  an  essential  part  in 
any  scheme  of  reconciliation.  He  was  ready  to  go  great 
lengths  in  order  to  stop  the  mouth  of  criticism  and  deprive 
secession  of  plausibility.  A  Council  was  not  merely  the 
best  plan,  but  the  only  possible  plan;  otherwise  Germany 
might  follow  the  example  of  England,  hold  a  national  synod 
and  establish  a  national  church.  The  project,  however,  was 
hedged  about  by  difficulties.  The  Pope  wished  to  suppress 
the  Lutheran  rebellion  and  re-establish  papal  jurisdiction 
throughout  Germany,  yet  he  did  not  wish  the  Emperor  to 
have  any  more  power  than  he  had,  and  it  was  as  plain  as 


AT  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT 


255 


the  sun  at  noon  that  with  a  united  and  loyal  Germany  be¬ 
hind  him,  the  Emperor  would  have  the  continent  of 
Europe,  including  the  papacy,  at  his  feet.  Besides,  there 
might  be  trouble  lest  a  convocation  of  bishops,  supported 
by  the  Emperor  and  the  King  of  France,  should  wish  to 
increase  their  power  at  the  expense  of  the  papacy.  Alto¬ 
gether  a  great  deal  of  circumspection  was  necessary.  His 
wish  was  for  the  Council  to  busy  itself  mainly  with  a  defi¬ 
nition  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  and  a  refutation  of 
Protestant  errors,  and  to  deal  with  ecclesiastical  reforms  as 
discreetly  as  possible;  for,  though  he  honestly  wished  to 
purify  the  Church,  nevertheless,  as  a  practical  politician,  he 
feared  a  too  sudden  eradication  of  long  established  abuses. 
Besides,  he  wished  to  keep  all  these  matters  in  his  own 
hands.  To  this  end,  he  made  an  adroit  use  of  his  influence 
and  authority.  He  hoped,  in  the  first  place,  to  set  up  a 
bulwark  against  Protestantism  and  win  over  those  who 
might  be  wavering  between  the  new  order  and  the  old,  and 
in  the  second,  to  defend  the  papacy  from  all  attempts  to 
clip  and  trim  its  power,  and  even  to  bring  it  forth  from  the 
ordeal  in  greater  strength  and  vigor  than  before,  and  by 
accomplishing  all  this,  outgeneral  both  the  Emperor  and 
the  King  of  France.  With  reference  to  that  part  of  his 
plan  that  concerned  the  theological  duties  of  the  Council,  he 
had  recourse  to  the  young  Order,  whose  members  had 
pledged  themselves  to  a  devout  obedience  to  the  Holy  See, 
and  asked  Ignatius  to  select  three  of  them  to  act  as  his  rep¬ 
resentative  theologians  at  the  Council.  Ignatius  appointed 
Lefevre,  Lainez  and  Salmeron;  Lefevre  died  soon  afterwards 
and  the  other  two  went  alone. 

When  they  set  forth,  Ignatius  gave  them,  in  his  method¬ 
ical  way,  a  list  of  instructions  for  their  conduct.  It  seems 
certain  from  these  instructions  that  neither  he  nor  they 
foresaw  just  the  nature  or  the  importance  of  the  role  they 
were  to  play;  evidently,  all  anticipated  little  more  than  that 
the  representatives  were  to  attend  an  assembly  of  the 
ecclesiastical  notables  of  Latin  Christendom,  where  they 
would  be  seen  and  heard,  and  that  the  Society  would  be 
judged  by  their  behaviour.  The  instructions  were  ele- 


256 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


mentary.  Ignatius  knew  that  the  two  men  were  humble- 
minded,  and  would  not  feel  hurt  by  elementary  counsels; 
and  if,  contrary  to  his  belief,  they  were  not  properly 
humble,  as  became  members  of  the  Order,  it  was  his  duty 
to  administer  such  discipline  to  their  vanity  as  would  be 
for  their  good.  Since  Loyola's  method  here  of  dealing  with 
his  subordinates  is  characteristic,  and  the  matter  of  the 
Council  important,  I  shall  give  an  outline  of  these 
instructions: 

He  begins  by  saying  that  as  a  general  rule,  when  people 
discuss  spiritual  things  for  spiritual  advantage,  they  benefit 
by  such  discussion;  nevertheless,  members  of  the  Society 
stand  on  a  peculiar  footing,  and  must  be  on  their  guard, 
otherwise  more  harm  than  good  will  befall,  and  therefore 
it  will  be  prudent  to  think  beforehand  over  the  best  methods 
to  be  pursued.  The  rules  he  shall  lay  down  are  not  to  be 
taken  too  literally,  rather  as  a  set  of  suggestions  that  may 
be  modified  to  suit  shifting  circumstances.  As  was  his  cus¬ 
tom,  Ignatius,  in  giving  advice  looked  upon  the  matter  be¬ 
fore  him  as  if  he  were  to  be  the  actor,  and  often  says, 
instead  of  “you  should  do  this  or  that,"  “I  would  do  so  and 
so." 

I.  I  should  be  slow  to  speak,  and  then  only  after  re¬ 
flection,  and  in  a  friendly  spirit;  especially  on  any 
matters  that  may  come  up  for  discussion  before  the 
Council. 

II.  And,  just  as  it  is  profitable  to  be  slow  to  speak,  so  it 
is  profitable  to  listen  quietly,  in  order  to  understand 
the  kind  of  mind  the  speakers  have,  their  feelings, 
their  wills,  and  be  the  better  able  to  speak  in  answer — 
or  to  remain  silent. 

III.  Whenever  you  speak  upon  the  general  subject  under 
discussion, — or  whether  you  branch  off  from  it — it  is  a 
good  thing  to  enumerate  the  reasons  on  both  sides,  in 
order  not  to  appear  set  in  your  own  opinion;  and,  at 
the  same  time  try  not  to  annoy  any  one. 

IV.  I  should  not  adduce  any  persons,  especially  if  they  are 
persons  of  consequence,  as  my  authorities,  except  in 


AT  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT 


257 


matters  thoroughly  considered,  making  myself  friendly 
with  all,  but  not  too  much  of  a  partisan  of  anybody’s. 

V.  When  the  matters  under  discussion  are  so  plainly  right 
that  one  neither  could  nor  should  hold  one’s  tongue, 
one  should  give  one’s  opinion  with  the  utmost  possible 
calmness  and  modesty,  and  end  with  salvo  meliori 
judicio — subject  to  a  wiser  opinion. 

VI.  Finally,  if  I  wished  to  speak  in  a  discussion  upon  quali¬ 
ties  acquired  or  divinely  imparted,  I  should  not  con¬ 
sider  my  own  leisure,  nor  hurry  for  lack  of  time,  nor 
regard  my  personal  convenience,  but  suit  the  con¬ 
venience  of  the  other  person,  in  order  to  arouse  him 
to  the  greater  glory  of  God. 

After  these  preliminary  counsels,  Ignatius  goes  on  to  say 
that  the  best  they  can  do  for  the  greater  glory  of  God  is  to 
preach,  to  hear  confession,  to  read  the  Bible,  teach  boys, 
give  the  Exercises,  visit  the  poor  in  hospitals,  exhort,  and 
so  forth,  each  according  to  his  talents  and  aptitudes,  and  to 
pray  God — and  urge  others  to  do  so,  too, — to  pour  His  di¬ 
vine  spirit  upon  all  members  of  the  Council.  When 
preaching,  they  are  not  to  touch  on  matters  upon  which 
Protestants  and  Catholics  differ,  but  to  confine  themselves 
to  morals  and  attendance  at  Church,  exhorting  the  con¬ 
gregation  to  a  sense  of  spiritual  realities  and  to  a  love  of 
God,  but  they  are  to  speak  frequently  of  the  Council,  and 
always  at  the  end  of  a  sermon,  and  to  say  a  prayer  for  it. 
And  he  concludes  with  rules  for  their  own  spiritual  welfare: 
They  are  to  set  apart  an  hour  in  the  evening  to  tell  one 
another  what  has  been  done  during  the  day  and  what  had 
better  be  undertaken  on  the  following  day;  and  to  come  to 
an  agreement,  whether  as  to  things  past  or  future,  whether 
by  voting,  or  in  any  other  way.  And,  each  in  turn  is  to 
ask  the  others  to  correct  him  as  they  think  best,  and  he  is 
not  to  answer  back,  unless  they  ask  him  to  justify  what  he 
has  been  corrected  for.  In  the  morning,  resolutions  are  to 
be  made,  and  twice  a  day  self-examination  as  to  the  per¬ 
formance  of  those  resolutions.  These  last  few  rules,  I  con¬ 
jecture,  made  a  part  of  the  instructions  given  whenever 


258 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


several  Fathers  went  on  any  mission  together.  Ignatius 
foresaw  that  the  delegated  Fathers  would  require  a  little 
time  to  look  about  and  adjust  themselves,  so  the  instruc¬ 
tions  were  not  to  go  into  effect  until  five  days  after  their 
arrival. 

Lainez  and  Salmeron  reached  Trent  in  May,  1546, — why 
they  did  not  go  sooner,  I  don’t  know — ;  Claude  Jay  was 
also  present,  as  procurator  for  the  Cardinal  of  Augsburg, 
and  Father  Covillon,  a  new  member  of  the  Society,  as  theo¬ 
logian  for  the  Duke  of  Bavaria.  The  Council,  even  at  its 
best,  hardly  deserves  the  term  ecumenical,  for  there  were 
no  Protestants  there,  and  no  delegates,  so  far  as  I  remem¬ 
ber,  from  Oriental  Christendom,  and  even  after  several 
months  there  were  but  about  three  score  voting  members, 
some  forty  Italian  prelates,  twenty  Spaniards,  and  a  few 
scattering  from  here  and  there,  such  as  Reginald  Pole,  a 
refugee  from  England,  and  Robert  Wauchope,  the  titular 
Archbishop  of  Armagh.  Under  the  system  of  organization 
adopted,  only  cardinals,  bishops,  heads  of  religious  orders, 
and  some  abbots,  possessed  the  right  to  vote.  Theologians, 
such  as  Lainez  and  Salmeron,  were  there  to  give  their 
opinions  on  matters  laid  before  them,  but  with  no  further 
privilege. 

Lainez  and  Salmeron  conducted  themselves  with  extreme 
prudence,  keeping  modestly  in  the  background ;  they  studied 
the  matters  that  were  to  come  up  before  the  Council,  made 
the  best  of  what  opportunities  they  got  to  express  their 
views  to  one  prelate  or  another  in  private  conversation  or  by 
brief  letters,  and  spent  their  time  going  about  to  hear  con¬ 
fessions,  or  tending  the  sick  and  the  poor.  It  was  some 
little  time  before  they  received  license  to  preach.  They 
attended  certain  subdivisions  of  the  Council  that  consid¬ 
ered  the  definition  of  dogma,  and  when  they  were  asked  to 
give  their  opinions,  succeeded  in  doing  so  “to  the  satisfac¬ 
tion  of  their  hearers,  both  prelates  and  theologians,”  and 
soon  found  themselves  looked  upon  with  interest  and  kind¬ 
ness.  By  July  they  were  able  to  feel  that  they  were  of 
service  to  the  Council,  and  had  brought  distinction  and  good 
repute  (lustre  y  odor )  to  the  Company;  French,  Spanish 


AT  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT 


259 


and  Italian  bishops  showed  them  favors,  and  expressed  a 
wish  to  have  members  established  in  their  dioceses;  and 
various  dignitaries,  before  voting,  would  come  to  them  for 
advice. 

At  a  session  of  the  Congregation  of  Theologians,  held  in 
October,  Lainez  greatly  distinguished  himself.  The  Coun¬ 
cil  had  defined  certain  fundamental  dogmas,  such  as  or¬ 
iginal  sin,  and  had  taken  up  the  burning  question  of 
Justification.  There  was  no  one  present  to  defend  Justi¬ 
fication  by  faith  only,  but  one  member,  illustrious  for  his 
piety  and  learning,  had  propounded  a  doctrine  danger¬ 
ously  close  to  heresy.  He  suggested,  that,  in  order  to  be 
absolved  before  the  judgment  seat  of  God,  in  addition  to  our 
righteousness,  it  might  be  necessary  to  impute  the  righteous¬ 
ness  of  Christ  to  us,  that  is  the  merits  of  His  passion  and 
death,  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  the  defect  in  our 
righteousness,  which  is  always  deficient.  It  seems  (I  quote 
Dr.  Ludwig  Pastor)  that  the  true  doctrine  is  that  inherent 
righteousness  through  God’s  mercy  contains  already  every¬ 
thing  necessary  to  salvation,  and  that  the  acceptance  of  an 
imputed  justice  is  quite  unnecessary  in  order  to  venerate,  in 
the  justifying  and  redeeming  grace  of  Christ  the  basis  and 
root  of  man’s  justification.”  Lainez  made  a  very  long,  clear 
and  convincing  argument  to  show  the  erroneousness  of  the 
heterodox  opinion.  His  “erudition  and  brilliant  powers  of 
exposition”  made  a  deep  impression  upon  his  audience,  and 
from  that  time  the  Jesuit  Fathers  were  persons  of  consider¬ 
able  importance  at  the  Council.  Lainez  himself  acquired 
such  a  reputation  that,  whereas  one  hour  was  the  usual 
period  allotted  to  speakers,  the  President  permitted  him  to 
speak  for  three  hours  at  a  time,  or  longer.  His  success,  ap¬ 
parently,  was  not  at  once  reported  to  Ignatius,  and,  at  the 
very  time  when  the  Council  was  defining  the  dogma  of 
Justification,  in  sixteen  chapters,  containing  thirty-three 
canons,  “formulating  with  clearness  and  precision  the  stand¬ 
ard  of  Catholic  Truth  as  distinguished  from  Pelagian  error 
on  the  one  hand  and  Protestant  on  the  other,”  Ignatius  was 
planning  to  send  him  elsewhere.  In  great  alarm,  Salmeron 
at  once  wrote  to  protest : 


260 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Trent,  Jan.  20,  1547. 

To  Father  Ignatius: 

I  think  it  will  redound  greatly  to  God’s  service,  that  Mas¬ 
ter  Lainez  shall  stay  on  here;  his  presence  is  so  necessary 
now  that  I  really  believe  that  if  your  Reverence  were  here, 
you  would  feel  it  to  be  against  your  conscience  to  deprive 
the  whole  Council— this  is  no  hyperbole — of  an  eye.  There 
are  many  delicate  matters  to  be  discussed  and  very  few 
persons  have  the  distinction,  the  grace,  and  the  good  will  of 
the  Cardinals  and  prelates  of  all  nations  to  such  an  extent, 
as  to  be  able  to  get  their  views  accepted.  I  say  this,  al¬ 
though  up  to  now  I  have  obeyed  your  Reverence  in  trying 
to  facilitate  his  going,  nevertheless  I  see  that  his  presence  is 
imperative  and  of  the  utmost  use  to  the  Council. 

Salmeron. 

Ignatius  gave  way,  and  Lainez  and  Salmeron  stayed  at 
Trent  throughout  the  sessions  of  the  Council,  and  when  it 
adjourned  to  Bologna,  in  March,  1547,  they  went,  too.  They 
also  attended  subsequent  sessions  at  Trent,  when  the  Coun¬ 
cil  met  together  again,  from  May,  1551,  to  April,  1552.  But, 
as  will  appear  from  the  following  letter,  neither  their  repu¬ 
tation  for  learning  nor  their  position  as  representatives  of 
the  Pope,  availed  to  secure  them  any  great  attention,  so  far 
as  their  physical  wants  were  concerned.  It  is  but  fair  to 
suppose  that  in  the  little  city  of  Trent,  perched  high  among 
the  Alps,  and  suddenly  crowded  to  overflowing,  commodious 
lodgings  were  hard  to  get: 


Trent,  August  11,  1551. 

To  Father  Ignatius  Loyola: 

We  will  inform  your  Reverence  about  what  has  happened 
to  us  since  we  came  here,  and  about  our  lodgings,  not  to  find 
fault  with  anybody,  unless  it  be  ourselves,  but  to  let  you 
know  the  facts,  lest  they  may  be  reported  in  Rome  after 
another  fashion. 

When  we  arrived  here,  the  Very  Reverend  Legate  (Cardi¬ 
nal  Marcello  Crescenzi)  received  us,  as  far  as  we  could 
judge,  with  great  cordiality,  for  even  before  we  had  got  here 


AT  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT 


261 


he  had  spoken  of  our  coming  to  many  prelates,  saying  he 
was  glad  to  have  us;  and  they  said  nice  things  about  us,  as 
we  know  both  from  him  and  from  them.  He  said  he  would 
lodge  us  both  in  a  room  in  his  house,  and  that  an  inn  should 
be  at  once  looked  up,  which  he  hoped  would  be  near  by  in 
order  the  better  to  enjoy  our  society,  and  he  also  hoped  that 
we  would  regularly  dine  with  him,  but  if  we  preferred  to 
dine  in  our  own  room,  dinner  should  be  served  there.  We 
kissed  his  hands,  and  took  our  leave. 

Our  expectation  was  that  he  would  speak  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Council,  and  tell  him  to  take  charge  of  us  until  an  inn 
was  found.  The  Secretary  took  us  to  his  own  house  and 
said  that,  as  we  were  not  lodged  at  an  inn,  we  should  come 
there  for  just  that  one  night;  and  he  gave  us  all  three,  for 
our  joint  apartment,  a  little,  tiny,  smoky  oven  of  a  room, 
with  a  bed  in  it  and  a  trucklebed  (which  when  pulled  out 
did  not  leave  space  to  take  two  steps  in  the  room).  There 
was  no  table  for  us  to  study  at,  or  write  a  letter,  and  as  for 
chairs  only  one  foot-stool,  but  there  were  lots  of  boots, 
belonging  to  him  and  his  valet,  and  a  big  wallet,  an  old 
harp,  and  the  valet’s  sword,  which  were  kept  in  our  oven. 
I  said  to  Master  Salmeron:  “See  here,  this  is  a  little 
more  than  we  bargained  for;  let’s  stay  at  the  inn,  and  to¬ 
morrow  on  my  way  to  the  palace,  I  will  tell  the  Secretary 
that,  in  order  not  to  go  changing  inns,  and  as  long  as  he 
said  we  were  to  be  here  for  only  one  night,  we  had  decided 
to  stay  at  the  inn.”  But  Salmeron  thought  it  was  better 
to  come  to  the  oven  in  spite  of  the  heat,  in  order  not  to 
show  any  signs  of  discontent  with  the  room,  or  any  dissatis¬ 
faction.  So  Salmeron  slept  that  night  upon  a  chest,  and 
John  [a  companion]  and  I  upon  the  beds;  but  the  next  day 
Salmeron  betook  himself  to  the  house  of  the  Bishop  of 
Verona,  which  was  near  by,  to  sleep,  but  though  I  was 
offered  the  same,  in  order  that  we  should  not  all  leave  the 
apartment,  John  and  I  continued  to  sleep  in  the  oven.  One 
day  the  Legate’s  Secretary  came  and  asked  if  we  lacked  any¬ 
thing;  and  I  answered  with  my  usual  freedom,  or  foolish¬ 
ness:  “You  can  see;  we  lack  everything.”  And  he  said: 
“That’s  so;  but  at  the  present  moment,  what  do  you  need?” 


262 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


So  I  answered:  “At  least  we  need  a  candle  to  go  to  bed 
by.”  Then  he  asked:  “What  more?”  And  I  said,  laugh¬ 
ing  all  the  time,  “A  candle-stick  to  put  it  in.”  However, 
the  keeper  of  the  store  closet  was  out,  so  we  couldn’t  have  a 
candle  that  night:  nevertheless  we  were  the  gainers,  for  we 
got  a  torch  to  go  to  bed  by. 

After  about  a  week,  having  paid  visits  upon  almost  every¬ 
body,  we  went  to  the  Cardinal  to  beg  him  to  give  us  a  room; 
for  everybody  was  asking  us  where  we  lodged,  and  a  good 
many  people  wanted  to  come  to  see  us,  but  we  did  not  think 
that  we  could  receive  visitors  where  we  were.  He  told  us 
that  they  would  surely  give  us  a  room ;  however,  the  owner 
of  the  house,  where  he  wished  to  lodge  us,  was  away,  but 
that  as  soon  as  he  came  back,  he  would  take  us  in.  The 
owner  did  return  in  three  or  four  days,  and  offered  us  rooms; 
but  as  the  house  was  new  and  still  unfinished,  and  as  there 
were  neither  doors  nor  windows,  he  asked  for  an  advance  of 
ten  ducats  on  the  rent  in  order  to  complete  the  rooms. 
When  he  went  to  ask  the  Secretary  of  the  Council  for  the 
ducats — I  was  present — the  Secretary  answered  sharply, 
that  he  was  a  dreadful  man,  etc.  After  the  landlord  had 
gone,  I  said  to  the  Secretary:  “It  would  have  been  a  good 
thing,  if  you  had  given  him  those  ducats,  for  in  the  end 
they  come  out  of  the  rent,  and  it  makes  little  difference.” 
To  which  he  said:  “What  rent  do  you  think  we  have  to 
pay  for  those  rooms  per  month,  anyhow,  that  you  increase 
the  cost  that  we  shall  have  to  bear  in  hiring  them?”  I 
answered,  a  little  indignantly:  “Well,  there  is  some  ex¬ 
pense  for  every  one  that  comes  to  the  Council;  do  you  think 
you  spend  much  for  us?  Don’t  you  know  that  we  don’t 
eat  our  bread  for  nothing,  but  that  we  work  as  hard  as  the 
others?  The  Pope  knows  that,  and  that  is  why  he  sent  us; 
and  you  have  done  a  thing,  that  has  neither  head  nor  tail, 
in  putting  two  priests,  sent  by  the  Pope,  into  your  servant’s 
room,  and  such  a  room,  that  I  am  astonished  at  you.  And 
since  you  are  not  spending  your  own  money,  you  ought  to 
spend  according  to  the  orders  you  receive  from  the  Pope,  and 
not  keep  us  all  this  time  where  you  do;  Salmeron  had  to 
sleep  on  a  chest  the  first  night,  and  hasn’t  been  willing  to 


AT  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT 


263 


sleep  there  again;  and  I  should  have  liked  to  do  the 
same,  if  it  had  not  been  that  I  didn’t  want  to  show 
your  shortcomings.  But  I  promise  you  I  shall  tell  the 
Cardinal  how  we  are  situated,  and  that  I  shall  write  it  to 
Rome.” 

That’s  the  whole  story,  and  the  full  extent  of  my  bad 
temper.  The  good  man  was  scandalized,  and  (so  I  have 
heard)  told  the  Cardinal;  and  I,  quite  without  anger,  rather 
to  please  Master  Angelo,  Secretary  of  the  Council,  and  the 
Cardinal,  told  the  Cardinal,  after  supper,  laughing,  in  the 
presence  of  Master  Angelo,  all  that  had  passed.  I  didn’t 
blame  Master  Angelo,  but  rather  my  own  bad  temper  and 
freedom,  although  at  the  time  it  seemed  to  me  right,  and 
seems  to  me  so  now,  and  that’s  why  I  told  the  Cardinal. 
His  Reverence,  forewarned  by  Master  Angelo,  said  that  our 
having  no  rooms  was  from  no  lack  of  good  will  on  his  part, 
but  because  of  the  chance  absence  of  the  house-owner;  and 
he  excused  Master  Angelo,  saying  that  as  we  were  in  the 
habit  of  preaching  patience,  we  must  also  practise  it.  And 
I  told  him  truthfully,  that  I  had  not  done  this  in  order  to 
escape  discomfort,  for  the  year  before  I  had  passed  three 
months  in  Africa  under  a  sheet,  suffering  from  heat  by  day 
and  from  cold  by  night,  and  that  in  the  oven  I  could  laugh 
and  be  content,  but  that  I  had  spoken  out  because  it  was 
not  fit  and  proper  for  us  to  have  no  conveniences  for  study, 
whether  to  prepare  to  preach,  or  to  read,  or  anything  else, 
nor  towards  those  that  sent  us,  nor  towards  his  Eminence, 
nor  for  any  members  of  the  Council  who  might  wish  to 
come  to  see  us.  And  I  told  him  truthfully,  that  I  had  not 
expressed  any  discontent  to  anybody  except  to  his  Emi¬ 
nence  and  to  Master  Angelo,  and  that  he  should  take  this 
freedom  on  my  part  as  in  the  line  of  my  duty;  and  that  if  I 
had  done  wrong  in  any  way,  he  should  impose  penance  upon 
me,  and  I  would  perform  it  very  gladly,  provided  that  he 
would  harbor  no  ill  feelings  against  the  Society  or  against 
us  and  that  in  time,  if  the  Council  continued,  he  would  see 
our  fidelity  and  our  wish  to  serve  him  in  every  good  thing 
that  we  could.  In  this  way  we  remain  good  friends;  and  I 
at  least  had  the  satisfaction  of  telling  him  what  was  on  my 


264 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


mind.  And  next  day,  seeing  that  the  matter  of  the  house 
dragged,  for  the  owner  had  gone  away  again,  and  the  greater 
part  of  it  was  full  of  the  Cardinal’s  retinue  and  there  was  no 
place  for  religious  services,  and  it  was  expensive  for  Master 
Angelo,  we  went  to  see  our  old  host  of  last  time,  and  got 
from  him  the  same  rooms  we  had  had  before,  for  so  much 
a  month,  and  he  did  it  most  willingly,  offering  them  to  us  at 
once,  and,  as  he  needs  the  money,  and  gives  us  three  rooms, 
washing  and  cooking,  and  what  else  we  need,  we  have 
agreed  to  give  him  three  crowns  a  month.  And  so,  as  the 
Cardinal  is  satisfied,  we  have  come  here  with  his  permission, 
and  on  the  understanding  that  we  shall  dine  with  him 
once  a  week.  And  his  Eminence  supplies  us  from  his  own 
house  with  a  generous  portion  of  bread  and  wine,  and  ten 
crowns  a  month,  at  the  Pope’s  charges,  which  we  asked  for, 
three  for  our  lodgings  and  seven  for  other  expenses,  as  Trent 
is  dearer  than  last  time.  The  Cardinal  is  to  give  us  also 
all  we  need  for  clothes,  etc. ;  for  he  does  not  wish  us  to  take 
anything  from  anybody  else.  We  made  the  same  arrange¬ 
ment  last  time  with  the  Cardinal  of  Santa  Cruz  [Marcello 
Cervini]  that  we  do  now. 

We  have  been  four  days  at  this  inn,  after  having  spent 
eleven  or  twelve  in  the  oven.  ...  We  have  wanted  to  write 
this  to  your  Reverence,  not  to  make  a  complaint  of  any  one, 
for  we  certainly  have  none;  but  in  order  that,  in  case  com¬ 
plaints  may  have  been  written  from  here  (but  we  don’t 
think  so)  you  may  know  the  facts,  and  be  able  to  make 
use  of  them.  And  also  because,  in  accordance  with  my 
character,  I  should  not  be  at  peace,  if  I  had  not  advised 
you  of  this  fault,  so  that  you  might  correct  me.  .  .  . 

Lainez. 

In  the  final  session  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  in  1561,  which 
Lainez  attended  as  General  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  he  repre¬ 
sented  the  extreme  ultramontane  view,  and  did  all  he  could 
to  strengthen  the  Pope’s  autocratic  powers;  but  that  period 
lies  beyond  the  limits  of  my  subject.  There  is,  however, 
one  more  episode  to  which  I  shall  refer,  as  it  shows  that, 
notwithstanding  the  severe  discipline  which  the  Jesuit 


AT  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT 


265 


Fathers  had  undergone,  notwithstanding  their  humility  and 
their  habitual  self-control,  the  old  Adam  had  not  been 
wholly  expelled,  but  that  they  were  sensitive  to  provocation 
and  irritation,  like  ourselves.  At  the  second  reunion  of  the 
Council,  Lainez  and  Salmeron  went  about  paying  their  re¬ 
spects  to  all  the  prelates  and  theologians,  in  the  hope  of 
making  the  Society  favorably  known  to  them.  In  this  they 
were  successful  except  in  the  case  of  the  learned  Dominican 
monk,  Melchior  Cano,  who  for  some  reason  or  other,  not 
very  clear, — as  I  have  told  in  an  earlier  chapter, — had  al¬ 
ready  fallen  foul  of  the  Jesuit  Fathers  who  had  been  con¬ 
ducting  missions  in  Spain.  It  seems  likely  that  he  had 
met  Ignatius  at  Salamanca  in  early  days,  but  nothing  is 
known  about  their  meeting;  and  in  the  meantime  he  had 
become  a  distinguished  professor  of  theology  at  Salamanca, 
and  was  now  at  the  Council  as  one  of  the  Emperor’s  theo¬ 
logians.  Cano’s  quarrel  with  the  Society  in  Spain  had  been 
notorious  and  perhaps  it  was  partly  in  the  hope  to  effect  a 
reconciliation  that  Lainez  and  Salmeron  went  to  see  him  at 
Trent.  They  explained  the  nature  and  purposes  of  the  So¬ 
ciety;  Cano  raised  objections  and  attacked  the  arguments 
put  forward  by  his  visitors  in  its  favor.  For  two  hours  the 
dispute  waxed  hotter  and  hotter.  Finally  Lainez  said: 
“For  charity’s  sake,  Father,  answer  me  one  question:  Are 
you  anything  more  than  a  simple  Dominican  friar  in  the 
Church  of  God?”  Cano:  “No.”  Lainez:  “Why,  then, 
do  you  take  upon  yourself  the  office  of  the  bishops  and  the 
Pope,  God’s  Vicar,  and  what’s  more,  condemn  those  very 
persons  whom  the  bishops  and  the  Pope  have  approved 
and  do  approve?”  Cano,  smiling  ironically :  “OLord!  Is 
your  Worship  not  pleased  to  have  the  dogs  bark  when  the 
shepherds  snooze?”  Lainez:  “Let  them  bark,  but  at  the 
wolves  and  not  at  other  watchdogs.”  By  this  time  both 
had  lost  their  tempers,  and  Cano  shouted  out:  “Oh,  throw 
away  your  new  ideas,”  insinuating  that  the  Jesuits  had  in¬ 
troduced  unorthodox  usages  and  doctrines.  This  was  more 
than  Lainez  could  bear.  Dropping  Latin  for  Spanish,  in  his 
excitement,  he  shouted  back  a  very  improper  word,  and 
dashed  out  of  the  room;  but  he  had  hardly  got  to  the  street 


266 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


door,  than  in  a  fit  of  repentance  he  ran  back,  up  into  Cano’s 
room,  flung  himself  down  before  him  on  his  knees,  and 
begged  his  pardon  for  the  gross  word  he  had  uttered  in  a 
fit  of  anger. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 


FRANCIS  XAVIER 

It  is  now  time  to  say  something  of  those  achievements  of 
the  Society  that  have  won  the  greatest  celebrity  and  ad¬ 
miration,  and  are  most  colored  with  high  romance.  Among 
all  the  adventurers  of  those  early  days,  Magellan,  Albu¬ 
querque,  de  Soto,  Cortez,  Pizarro,  Cabot,  Raleigh,  Cham¬ 
plain,  not  one  was  more  heroic  than  Francis  Xavier  ;  all 
unwittingly,  and  in  the  innocence  of  complete  indifference 
to  human  praise,  he  set  up  to  himself  in  the  temple  of  Fame 
as  enduring  a  memorial  as  the  best  of  them.  Albuquerque 
presented  an  empire  to  the  Kingdom  of  Portugal,  Cortez 
and  Pizarro  annexed  great  Provinces  to  Spain,  Champlain 
added  Canada  to  France,  but  Xavier,  during  his  ten  years 
of  missionary  labors,  converted  (it  is  said)  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  heathens  to  Christianity;  and  the  religion 
that  he  taught,  whatever  one  may  think  of  certain  aspects 
of  it,  was  a  religion  of  decency,  devotion  and  love. 

It  was  in  1538,  I  believe,  that  King  John  of  Portugal, 
through  the  mediation  of  Dr.  Diego  de  Govea,  applied  to 
Ignatius  for  some  of  the  Fathers  to  go  as  missionaries  to 
India.  The  Portuguese  ambassador  asked  for  six.  Ignatius 
replied:  “Gracious  Heavens,  Mr.  Ambassador,  if  out  of  the 
ten  that  we  number,  six  go  to  India,  who  will  be  left  for  the 
rest  of  the  world?”  He  consented  to  send  two,  and  at  the 
ambassador’s  suggestion  chose  Rodriguez,  the  Portuguese 
by  birth,  and  Bobadilla;  but  as  the  latter  was  ill  in  health, 
he  summoned  Xavier:  “You  have  heard,  Brother  Francis, 
that  by  command  of  the  Pope  two  of  us  are  to  go  to  India, 
and  that  Bobadilla,  who  was  selected  for  the  enterprise,  is 
prevented  by  sickness.  The  Ambassador  is  in  such  a 
hurry  that  he  cannot  wait.  So  it  is  you  that  God  will  em¬ 
ploy  upon  this  mission.”  To  which  Xavier  answered: 

267 


268 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


“Father,  I  am  ready.”  Ignatius  furnished  him  with  the  fol¬ 
lowing  letter,  and  he  started  off  the  next  day,  never  to  come 
back: 


To  Beltrano  de  Loyola 


Rome,  March  20,  1540. 


May  God  bless  us  and  keep  us  always : 

I  haven’t  time  to  write  at  length,  as  I  should  like  to  do, 
on  account  of  the  rush  and  hurry,  which  they  put  upon  us, 
in  order  to  send  some  of  us  to  the  Indies,  others  to  Ireland 
and  to  other  parts  of  Italy. 

Master  Francis  Xavier,  of  Navarre,  son  of  Senor  de 
Xavier,  a  member  of  the  Society,  will  bring  this  letter;  he 
is  going  under  the  Pope’s  orders,  on  the  requisition  of  the 
King  of  Portugal,  beside  two  others  who  go  by  sea  to  the 
same  King.  Master  Francis  knows  all  about  these  matters 
and  will  tell  you  all  from  me,  as  if  I  were  there  myself. 

You  must  know  that  the  Ambassador  of  the  King  of 
Portugal,  with  whom  Master  Francis  is  going,  is  on  the  most 
friendly  terms  with  us;  we  are  much  indebted  to  him;  and 
in  matters  that  concern  the  service  of  God,  he  will  recom¬ 
mend  us  to  the  King  and  do  all  he  can.  Please  therefore, 
for  the  service  of  God,  show  him  all  the  courtesy  you  can. 
Treat  Araoz  as  a  member  of  the  family;  and  accept  all  that 
Master  Francis  says  as  you  would  do  with  me.  Please  re¬ 
member  me  most  kindly  to  your  wife  and  the  family. 

May  the  Lord  bless  us  and  keep  us  always. 

De  bondad  pobre, 


Inigo. 


Xavier’s  readiness  to  go  provides  us  with  a  measure  of  his 
love  of  God,  for  he  dearly  loved  his  friends.  In  a  letter 
written  from  Bologna,  on  his  journey  to  Portugal,  he  says  to 
Ignatius: 

On  Easter  day  I  received  some  letters  from  you  in  the 
post-bag  that  came  for  the  Ambassador:  the  Lord  knows 
what  pleasure  and  comfort  they  brought  me.  And  since  I 
think  that  by  letters  only  we  shall  behold  one  another  in 


FRANCIS  XAVIER 


269 


this  life — but  in  the  other  face  to  face  with  many  embraces 
— in  the  little  space  of  life  left  to  us,  we  must  see  one  an¬ 
other  by  frequent  letters. 

And,  again,  he  wrote  from  Lisbon,  a  year  later,  on  the 
eve  of  sailing: 

There  is  nothing  more  to  tell  except  that  we  are  soon  to  go 
aboard.  So  I  end,  with  a  petition  to  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
to  grant  that  we  may  meet  and  see  one  another  in  another 
life  in  bodily  shape,  since  I  doubt  if  in  this  life  we  shall  see 
one  another  again,  for  Rome  is  a  long  way  from  India,  and 
there  is  so  great  a  harvest  there  that  there  will  be  no  need  to 
go  looking  elsewhere.  And  let  whoever  enters  first  into  the 
other  life,  and  does  not  find  a  brother  whom  he  loves  in  the 
Lord,  pray  to  Christ,  to  unite  all  of  us  there  in  His  glory. 

On  April  7,  1541,  he  sailed  away,  in  his  shabby  clothes, 
with  no  superfluity  other  than  a  few  books.  Some  Portu¬ 
guese  gentlemen  wished  to  fit  him  out  in  the  manner  suit¬ 
able  for  a  messenger  honored  by  the  King  and  the  Pope, 
with  servants  and  so  forth,  but  “he  answered  with  much 
grace  and  wiseness,  that  God  gave  what  repute  and  credit 
were  needful  through  the  contempt  of  worldly  honors  and 
of  oneself;  and  that  this  very  desire  to  acquire  repute  by 
decking  oneself  out  with  worldly  ceremony,  had  brought  re¬ 
ligion  in  many  places  to  the  pass  in  which  we  saw  it.”  Two 
missionaries  went  with  him,  Paolo  da  Camerino,  an  Italian 
priest,  and  Francisco  Mansilhas,  a  Portuguese  student. 

Xavier  must  have  known  what  to  expect.  The  voyage  to 
India  lasted  six  months.  The  usual  course  was  to  make  a 
continuous  voyage  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Mozam¬ 
bique,  to  put  in  there  for  repairs,  supplies,  and  rest,  and 
then  on,  along  the  coast  of  Arabia,  across  the  Indian  Ocean, 
to  the  port  of  Goa.  Twice  they  crossed  the  equator,  and 
rounding  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  went  far  south,  so  that  at 
times  they  were  perspiring  and  at  other  times  almost  frozen. 
The  ships  were  considered  “grandes  y  poderosas”  (large  and 
powerful),  but  the  cabins  were  so  small  that  a  passenger 
could  scarce  lie  down,  and  the  poorer  folks  were  huddled 


270 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


together  in  the  hold.  The  rations  consisted  of  biscuit,  salt 
fish  and  salt  beef ;  but  the  mode  of  cooking  failed  to  render 
them  palatable.  The  fresh  water  did  not  keep  well,  and  the 
quantity  doled  out  to  each  man  was  very  scanty,  especially 
during  the  hot  stretches  of  the  voyage.  The  ship’s  doctor 
had  more  than  he  could  do,  and  his  supplies  usually  gave 
out.  In  short,  quite  apart  from  perils  of  winds  and  waves, 
of  reefs,  of  fire,  of  French  corsairs  believed  to  be  manned  by 
heretics,  not  only  the  steerage  but  also  the  cabin  passengers 
were  badly  off.  Contagious  diseases  often  broke  out,  and 
on  some  voyages,  two,  three,  or  four  hundred  people  died. 
One  can  see  how  crowded  the  ships  must  have  been.  Part 
of  the  difficulty  was  that  ignorant  emigrants  had  no  idea 
of  what  they  needed,  or  else  no  means  to  buy  it,  and  went  on 
board  with  one  shirt,  two  loaves  of  bread,  a  cheese,  a  pot  of 
marmalade,  and  nothing  else. 

On  Xavier’s  ship,  the  Santiago,  the  number  of  sick  and 
ailing  was  very  large,  “but  the  charity  and  patience  of 
Father  Francis  was  still  greater  than  all  the  difficulties.” 
He  tended  the  sick,  he  taught  the  catechism  to  children  and 
slaves,  he  preached;  he  seemed  more  like  one  of  the  ship’s 
hands  than  a  person  of  so  much  importance;  he  performed 
the  most  menial  offices,  washing  not  only  his  own  clothes 
but  those  of  the  sick.  Altogether,  his  life  on  board  was  such 
that  for  the  greater  part  of  the  voyage  (as  he  said)  his  bed 
consisted  of  a  coil  of  rope.  His  tact  and  gentle  ways  made 
him  master  of  all  hearts.  He  was  so  ready  and  gay  in  con¬ 
versation,  and  the  serenity  of  his  soul  showed  so  plainly  in 
his  countenance,  that  he  got  on  well  with  everybody.  The 
hardest  sinners,  such  as  generally  avoid  good  men  and 
priests,  were  very  glad  to  talk  to  him,  and  in  a  little  while 
found  themselves  changed  from  what  they  had  been.  In 
short,  he  was  so  beloved  that  he  could  do  pretty  much  what 
he  wished  with  everybody. 

The  voyage  was  not  prosperous;  they  were  obliged  to 
stop  for  months  at  Mozambique,  and  Xavier  did  not  arrive 
at  Goa  until  May  6,  1542.  There  his  missionary  work 
began  among  the  Portuguese;  for  absence  from  home,  the 
love  of  customs  of  the  country,  the  demoralization  of  living 


FRANCIS  XAVIER 


271 


among  an  inferior  people,  had  smoothed  the  way  for  much 
laxity  of  life.  But  after  a  few  months  he  went  southward 
to  the  natives  along  the  coast  of  Malabar.  I  will  quote 
from  a  long  letter  he  wrote  after  he  had  been  gone  from 
Rome  nearly  four  years: 

To  the  Comrades  in  Rome 

Cochin,  India,  Jan.  15,  1544. 

May  the  grace  and  love  of  Christ,  our  Lord,  always  be 
with  us  and  bless  us. 

It  is  two  years  and  nine  months  since  I  left  Portugal, 
and  since  then  I  have  written  three  times,  but  I  have  only 
received  one  letter  since  I  arrived  in  India,  written  on 
January  18,  1542.  The  Lord  knows  what  comfort  it  gave 
me.  It  reached  me  two  months  ago ;  the  delay  was  because 
the  ship  spent  the  winter  in  Mozambique. 

Master  Paul,  Francisco  de  Mansilhas,  and  I  are  very  well. 
Master  Paul  is  at  Goa,  in  the  college  of  Santa  Fe;  he  has 
charge  of  the  students  in  the  house.  Francisco  and  I  are 
here  among  the  Christians  at  Cape  Cormorin ;  we  have  been 
here  more  than  a  year.  There  are  many  Christians  here, 
and  many  are  converted  every  day.  As  soon  as  I  came  to 
this  coast,  where  they  live,  I  tried  to  find  out  what  they 
knew  about  Christ,  and  asked  them  about  the  particulars 
of  their  faith,  and  what  more  they  believed  now  that  they 
were  Christians  than  they  had  when  they  were  heathen; 
I  got  no  other  answer  except,  “We  are  Christians.”  They 
do  not  know  our  language,  and  so  they  don’t  know  what 
they  ought  to  believe.  And  as  I  can’t  understand  them, 
nor  they  me,  because  their  native  tongue  is  Malabar  and 
mine  Basque,  I  got  together  the  most  intelligent  of  them, 
and  sought  out  some  persons  who  knew  both  languages. 
After  many  meetings,  and  with  much  difficulty,  we  trans¬ 
lated  the  prayers  from  Latin  into  Malabar,  beginning  with 
directions  as  to  the  manner  of  blessing  oneself,  and  con¬ 
fessing  that  the  Three  Persons  are  one  God,  then  the  creed, 
the  commandments,  the  Lord’s  prayer,  Ave  Maria,  Salve 
Regina,  and  the  general  confession.  After  these  had  been 


272 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


translated  into  their  language  and  I  had  learned  them  by 
heart,  I  went  through  the  village  ringing  a  bell,  collecting 
all  the  men  and  boys  that  I  could,  and  after  I  had  got  them 
together,  I  gave  them  a  lesson  twice  every  day.  In  the 
space  of  a  month  I  taught  the  prayers,  and  bade  the  boys 
teach  their  fathers  and  mothers,  and  the  whole  household, 
what  they  had  learned  at  school. 

Every  Sunday  I  assembled  the  whole  village,  men  and 
women,  old  and  young,  to  say  their  prayers  in  their 
language.  They  enjoyed  it  and  came  with  great  glee.  They 
begin  with  the  acknowledgment  of  one  God,  Three  in  One, 
then  they  say  the  creed  aloud  in  their  language;  I  lead 
and  they  follow.  After  the  creed  has  been  said,  then  I 
speak  alone.  I  repeat  each  of  the  twelve  articles  by  itself, 
pausing  over  each,  and  explain  to  them  that  to  be  a 
Christian  means  to  believe  these  articles  without  a  doubt. 
Then  I  ask  if  they  firmly  believe  in  each  article;  and  then, 
all  together,  men  and  women,  old  and  young,  with  their 
arms  crossed  on  their  breasts,  shout  out  loud,  “Yes”  to 
every  article.  I  make  them  repeat  the  creed  oftener  than 
anything  else,  because  a  man  is  a  Christian  in  consequence 
of  his  belief  in  the  twelve  articles.  After  the  creed  I  pro¬ 
ceed  to  the  Commandments,  explaining  that  these  contain 
the  Christian  law,  and  that  if  a  Christian  keep  them  he  is 
good,  but  if  he  breaks  them  he  is  a  bad  Christian.  All  were 
amazed,  Christians  and  heathen,  to  learn  how  righteous 
the  law  of  Christ  is,  and  how  it  conforms  to  natural  reason. 
From  the  creed  we  proceed  to  the  Lord’s  prayer,  and  the 
Ave  Maria.  [He  goes  on  to  recount  how  carefully  he  drills 
his  pupils.  They  repeat  twelve  pater  nosters  and  twelve 
Ave  Marias  in  honor  of  the  twelve  articles  of  the  creed, 
then  ten  of  each  in  honor  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  and 
pray  for  grace  firmly  to  believe  each  article,  and  to  keep 
the  several  commandments.  After  they  were  able  to  say 
that  they  firmly  believed,  then  he  baptized  them.] 

I  hope  and  believe  that  the  boys  will  be  better  men 
than  their  fathers,  for  they  show  much  love  for  our  law, 
and  eagerness  to  learn  and  to  teach  our  prayers,  and  they 
abhor  the  idolatry  of  the  heathen.  They  often  are  con- 


FRANCIS  XAVIER 


273 


tentious  with  the  heathen,  and  rebuke  their  fathers  and 
mothers,  if  they  see  them  worship  idols,  and  find  fault  with 
them  in  my  presence.  When  they  report  to  me  that  idolatry 
is  practised  anywhere  in  the  countryside,  I  collect  all  the 
boys  and  repair  with  them  to  the  spot;  and  the  dishonor 
that  the  Devil  gets  from  the  boys  outweighs  the  honor 
he  gets  from  their  parents  and  relations,  for  the  children 
take  the  idols  and  break  them  into  bits,  and  spit  on  them, 
and  trample  on  them,  and  do  other  things,  that  are  just 
as  well  not  named,  but  it  is  quite  proper  for  the  boys  to 
do  them  to  that  Power  which  was  bold  enough  to  persuade 
their  fathers  to  worship  him. 

[He  continues  the  account  of  how  he  teaches  the  boys 
to  go  and  pray  with  the  old  and  the  sick,  and  so  forth;  and 
deplores  the  lack  of  laborers  for  the  harvest.]  Often  and 
often  I  am  moved  to  go  to  the  universities  of  Europe,  and 
cry  aloud,'  like  a  man  who  has  lost  his  wits,  most  of  all 
to  the  University  of  Paris,  and  say  in  the  Sorbonne  to 
those  that  have  more  learning  than  good  will  to  set  about 
putting  it  to  use,  ‘How  many  souls  will  ye  lose  from  glory 
and  let  go  to  hell  because  of  your  neglect  ?’  If  they  paid 
as  much  heed  to  the  reckoning  that  God  will  exact  of  them, 
and  to  the  talents  that  He  has  given  them,  as  they  do  to 
their  studies,  many  would  bestir  themselves,  and  take 
measures  and  spiritual  exercises  so  that  they  should  feel 
God’s  will  within  their  souls,  and  obey  it  rather  than  their 
own  inclinations,  and  say,  ‘Lord,  here  I  am,  what  wouldst 
Thou  have  me  do?  Send  me  whither  Thou  wilt,  even  to 
India,  if  that  be  the  thing  to  do.’  [He  fears  that  the  students 
pursue  learning  more  for  worldly  advancement  than  for 
God’s  glory.]  I  have  wanted  [he  says]  to  write  to  the 
University  of  Paris,  at  least  to  our  friend  Master  de  Corni- 
bus  and  to  Doctor  Picard,  how  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  heathen  would  become  Christian,  if  there  were  laborers 
minded  to  go  to  them.  .  .  .  The  multitude  of  people  in 
this  land  who  are  ready  to  become  Christians  is  so  great, 
that  it  often  happens  that  my  arms  are  wearied  out  with 
baptizing,  and  that  I  cannot  continue  to  repeat  in  their 
language  the  creed  and  commandments  and  prayers,  and 


274 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


the  explanation  of  what  Christianity  means,  and  what 
Paradise  is,  and  what  Hell  is,  and  who  go  to  the  one  and 
who  to  the  other. 

[He  describes,  in  no  very  flattering  terms,  the  brahmins 
who  look  after  the  pagodas  and  the  worship  of  idols,  and 
exact  gifts  from  the  people.]  As  I  was  going  about  to 
visit  Christians  in  those  villages  I  passed  many  pagodas, 
in  one  of  which  there  were  200  brahmins  who  came  out  to 
see  me.  And  in  our  conversation  I  asked  the  question, 
‘Please  tell  me  what  your  gods  and  idols  command  you  to 
do  in  order  to  go  to  heaven?’  There  was  great  dispute 
among  them  as  to  who  should  answer  me;  finally  they  told 
one  of  the  oldest  to  answer,  and  an  aged  man,  over  eighty, 
said:  ‘You  tell  me  first  what  the  God  of  the  Christians  tells 
you  to  do.’  But  I  saw  through  his  trickery,  and  refused  to 
answer  until  he  had.  So  he  was  obliged  to  reveal  his  ignor¬ 
ance.  He  answered  that  their  gods  commanded  men  to 
do  two  things  in  order  to  go  where  the  gods  were :  first,  not 
to  kill  cows  which  they  worship;  second,  to  give  alms  to 
the  brahmins  who  tend  the  pagodas.  When  I  heard  this 
answer,  I  was  grieved  that  devils  should  rule  our  neighbors 
after  that  fashion,  and  get  themselves  worshipped  instead 
of  God,  and  I  stood  up,  and  I  cried  aloud  to  the  brahmins 
seated  there,  and  repeated  the  creed  and  the  commandments 
in  their  language,  and  dwelt  a  little  while  on  each  com¬ 
mandment;  and  after  I  had  finished  the  commandments,  I 
repeated  my  admonition  in  their  language,  telling  what 
heaven  is  and  what  hell,  and  who  go  to  the  one  and  who 
to  the  other.  And  when  I  had  finished  talking,  the  brah¬ 
mins  got  up  and  embraced  me,  and  said,  ‘Verily  the  God 
of  the  Christians  is  the  true  God,  since  his  commandments 
are  so  completely  in  accord  with  natural  reason.’  They 
asked  me  if  our  soul  dies  with  the  body,  like  the  soul  of 
a  brute;  and  God  gave  me  arguments  suitable  to  their 
understanding,  so  that  I  explained  clearly  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  and  they  expressed  great  pleasure  and  content¬ 
ment.  The  arguments  to  be  given  to  this  idiot  people  need 
not  be  so  subtle  as  those  in  the  books  of  our  scholastic 
doctors.  [And  so  on,  at  much  length.] 


FRANCIS  XAVIER 


275 


There  is  nothing  more  to  write  you  concerning  matters 
here,  except  that  the  consolation  that  God  confers  upon 
those  who  go  among  the  heathen,  converting  them  to 
Christianity,  is  such,  that  if  there  is  content  in  this  life, 
it  is  here.  ...  So  I  make  an  end,  with  a  prayer  to  God 
that  since  of  His  mercy  He  united  us,  and  for  His  service 
has  separated  us  so  far  from  one  another,  that  He  will 
reunite  us  in  His  holy  heaven.  And  in  order  to  attain 
that  reward,  let  us  take  for  intercessors  and  advocates  all 
those  holy  souls  of  this  land,  where  I  am,  which  God  has 
taken  to  His  holy  heaven  after  I  had  baptized  them  and 
before  they  lost  the  state  of  innocency, — of  which  there 
are  more  than  a  thousand,  I  think.  I  pray  all  those  holy 
souls,  to  obtain  this  grace  from  God  for  us,  that  for  all 
the  time  that  we  may  be  in  this  state  of  exile  we  shall 
realize  in.  our  souls  His  holy  will  and  fulfill  it  perfectly. 

Your  dear  brother  in  Christ, 

Francisco. 

Of  his  letters  that  have  been  preserved  those  written  to 
Europe  are  more  or  less  narratives  of  this  character,  while 
those  to  his  subordinates  in  Goa,  Malacca,  or  elsewhere, — 
for  as  years  went  by  other  Jesuits  were  sent  to  help  him — 
contain  advice,  instructions  or  plans,  and  generally  stick 
very  closely  to  the  matters  in  hand.  Occasionally,  a  pass¬ 
age  or  a  sentence  reveals  his  homesickness  and  his  deep 
affection  for  his  friends: 

So  I  end,  though  I  never  could  end  if  I  were  to  write 
the  great  love  that  I  bear  to  you  all  and  to  each  one.  If 
the  hearts  of  those  who  love  one  another  in  Christ  could  be 
looked  into  in  this  present  life,  be  sure,  Hermanos  mios 
charissimos,  that  you  would  see  yourselves  clearly  in  mine; 
and  if  while  gazing  at  yourselves  in  it,  you  should  not 
recognize  yourselves,  it  would  be  because  I  rate  you  so 
high,  and  you  in  your  humility  rate  yourselves  so  low;  and 
for  that  reason  you  would  fail  to  know  your  pictures,  and 
not  because  they  are  not  imprinted  on  my  heart  and  soul. 
And  I  beg  that  there  shall  be  a  true  love  between  you, 


276 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


suffering  no  bitterness  of  spirit  to  spring  up,  ...  for  you 
remember  that  Christ  says  that  by  this  He  knows  His 
disciples,  if  they  have  love  one  to  another. 


And  in  another  letter  he  says: 

I  beg  you  for  the  love  of  our  Lord  God,  Dearest  Brothers, 
to  write  me  at  length  about  all  the  members  of  the  Society; 
for  since  I  no  longer  hope  to  see  you  face  to  face  in  this 
life,  at  least  let  it  be  as  through  a  glass  darkly,  that  is,  by 
letters.  And  to  Ignatius:  So  I  close,  beseeching  Christ,  since 
of  His  infinite  mercy,  He  has  joined  us  together  in  this 
life,  that  after  death  He  will  bring  us  to  His  glory. 

Your  son  in  Christ 

Francis  Xavier. 

The  most  interesting  parts  of  his  letters,  at  least  to  me, 
are  a  few  expressions,  here  and  there — where  his  emotion 
strips  off  that  sentiment  of  shyness  akin  to  shame  with 
which  the  Jesuits  accustomed  themselves  to  cloak  human 
affections — expressions  of  the  deep  love  he  felt  for  Ignatius, 
for  they  bear  eloquent  testimony  to  what  must  have  been 
an  almost  feminine  tenderness  and  loveableness  in  that 
stern  ascetic,  which,  like  planetary  forces  known  only  by 
their  visible  control  of  subject  bodies,  were  revealed  to 
very  few:  “V erdadero  Padre  mio  ”  “Vuestra  santa  Chari- 
dad,”  <cPadre  mio  de  mi  anima  observantissimo”  “ Padre 
mio  in  Christi  visceribus  unico”  uPadre  mio  de  mi  alma.” 
And  one  letter  ends:  “I  conclude,  kneeling  upon  the  ground 
as  I  write,  as  if  you  were  here  before  me,  beseeching  that 
you  will  commend  me  to  God  in  your  holy  prayers,  that 
He  will  let  me  know  His  holy  will  in  this  life,  and  give  me 
grace  to  perform  it.  Amen.” 

I  insist  upon  this  point  of  Xavier’s  love  for  Ignatius, 
because,  I  repeat,  it  is  an  index  to  Ignatius’s  character; 
and  in  order  to  establish  it  beyond  a  peradventure,  I  will 
quote  from  a  letter,  written  from  Cochin,  on  January  29, 
1552: 


FRANCIS  XAVIER 


277 


Verdadero  Padre  mio,  I  received  a  letter  from  your  Santa 
Chary  dad,  at  Malacca  when  I  got  back  from  Japan.  God 
knows  how  much  my  soul  was  comforted  to  get  news  so 
longed  for  of  your  health.  Among  the  many  other  com¬ 
forting  and  holy  words  in  your  letter,  I  read  those  at  the 
end,  “All  thine,  without  the  possibility  of  ever  forgetting, 
Ignatius.”  I  read  them  with  tears,  and  I  write  them  down 
with  tears,  remembering  the  past  and  how  much  love  you 
always  have  had  for  me  and  still  have,  and  thinking,  too, 
how  Our  Lord  delivered  me  out  of  many  toils  and  dangers 
in  Japan  through  the  intercession  of  your  holy  prayers. 
.  .  .  Your  santa  Chary  dad  says  how  great  is  the  desire  you 
have  to  see  me  before  you  die.  The  Lord  knows  what  an 
impression  these  words  of  great  love  made  upon  my  soul, 
and  how  many  tears  I  shed  each  time  I  think  of  them ;  and 
in  my  opinion,  I  may  take  comfort  from  them,  for  with 
holy  obedience  nothing  is  impossible.  .  .  .  And  so  I  con¬ 
clude  with  a  prayer  to  God — taking  you  for  my  intercessor 
on  earth  and  all  the  Society,  together  with  all  the  Church 
Militant,  and  for  my  intercessors  in  heaven,  all  the  saints 
who  in  this  life  were  of  the  Company  of  Jesus,  and  all  the 
Church  Triumphant,  so  that  by  their  prayers  and  merits 
Our  Lord  in  this  life  will  grant  me  to  know  His  holy  will, 
and  grace  to  accomplish  it  to  the  uttermost. 

The  least  of  your  sons,  but  the  first  in  exile, 

Francisco. 

I  shall  not  dwell  upon  the  dangers  that  he  underwent 
on  his  missionary  expeditions,  dangers  of  travel  by  land 
and  sea,  dangers  from  marauders  and  pirates,  dangers  of 
fevers  and  pestilence.  His  friends  would  try  to  deter  him. 
“My  best  friends  are  dismayed  by  my  purpose  to  take  so 
long  and  dangerous  a  voyage,  and  picture  the  perils  of 
storm,  reefs  and  robbers;  but  I  am  more  dismayed  to  see 
what  little  faith  they  possess.  All  things  are  in  God’s 
power,  and  my  only  fear  is  punishment  for  negligence  in 
His  service  and  failure  to  spread  Christ’s  name  among  the 
heathen.”  Physical  dangers  were  real  enough;  but  apart 
from  them,  other  difficulties  crowded  in  front  of  him.  The 


278 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


natives  were  of  many  different  tribes  and  languages;  and 
their  system  of  caste,  their  idolatry,  their  cruel  religious 
customs,  their  mendacity,  their  gross  vices,  their  instability 
of  purpose,  caused  him  perplexity  and  uneasiness.  Once, 
while  he  was  on  board  a  Chinese  junk,  the  crew,  in  fear  of  a 
storm,  sacrificed  to  idols  and  cast  lots  as  to  what  course  to  lay 
the  ship;  he  tried,  in  vain,  to  interfere.  “It  is  very  hard,” 
he  said,  “to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Devil  and  his  ministers.” 

And,  besides,  the  Portuguese  merchants,  who  were 
Christians,  finding  themselves  free  from  the  restraining  in¬ 
fluences  of  home,  had,  as  I  have  intimated,  yielded  to 
licentious  Oriental  ways,  and  had  got  into  a  mire  of  di - 
soluciones,  abominaciones  y  pecados.  Venturesome  men 
had  come  thousands  of  miles  and  braved  many  dangers  in 
order  to  exchange  the  manufactures  of  Europe  for  the 
products  of  the  East,  and  they  sought  to  soothe  their 
absence  from  civilization  with  the  charms  of  the  native 
women.  Xavier  was  often  sadly  disheartened;  he  writes 
to  one  of  his  fellow  missionaries:  “Sometimes,  I  admit,  I 
am  weary  of  life;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  I  should  accom¬ 
plish  more  for  our  holy  faith  by  dying  than  by  living,  since 
I  see  so  many  wrongs  and  insults  to  God  that  we  are 
powerless  to  help.” 

But  such  moments  of  depression  were  rare.  He  is  usually 
full  of  abounding  courage,  and  no  one  is  more  overflowing 
with  gratitude  than  he.  To  our  way  of  thinking  his  con¬ 
solations  are  very  unsubstantial.  In  sleep  he  sometimes 
dreams  that  he  is  with  his  brethren,  “estar  con  vosostros, 
charissimos,”  and  waking  he  often  thinks  of  them,  “re- 
cordarme  muchas  vezes  de  vosostros ,  charisimos  hermanos 
mios” ;  and,  he  says: 

In  order  that  I  may  never  forget  you,  I  want  to  tell  you, 
Charisimos  Hermanos,  that  for  my  consolation,  as  an  ever 
present  means  of  recollection,  I  have  cut  out  from  the 
letters  you  have  written  me  your  names  written  by  your 
own  hands,  and  putting  them  together  with  my  own  vow 
of  profession,  I  carry  them  about  with  me  all  the  time  for 
the  sake  of  the  great  consolation  that  they  give  me. 


FRANCIS  XAVIER 


279 


And,  once,  after  a  tribe  of  natives  had  been  baptized,  and 
some  heathen  King  had  come  down  in  wrath  and  in  the 
cruelest  ways  massacred  great  numbers  of  them,  he  wrote: 
‘Tor  this  we  must  give  many  thanks  to  the  Lord,  that  in 
our  days  there  is  no  failure  of  martyrs.” 

Indeed,  tribulations  of  all  kinds  were  to  him  occasions  for 
great  religious  consolation,  and  what  with  illness,  idolatry, 
the  immorality  and  murderous  habits  of  the  people,  he 
found  plenty  of  them.  “The  islands  (he  says)  are  well 
fitted  to  blind  a  man  in  a  few  years  by  an  abundance  of 
tears  of  consolation.”  All  these  ills  he  underwent  out  of 
a  love  and  desire  to  serve  his  God.  He  was  more  than  ready 
to  lay  down  his  life  for  his  neighbor’s  soul, 

Hoping  [as  he  writes  home  to  the  brethren]  with  my 
feeble  strength  to  obey  the  precept  of  the  Gospel,  Qui 
voluerit  animam  suam  salvam  facere  perdet  earn,  qui  autem 
perdiderit  earn  propter  me  inveniet  earn.  (Whosoever  will 
save  his  life  shall  lose  it:  and  whosoever  will  lose  his  life 
for  my  sake  shall  find  it.)  And,  my  dear  Brothers,  be 
sure  that  though  the  Latin  of  this  sentence  is  easy 
to  understand  in  the  abstract,  when  a  man  comes  in 
actual  fact  to  make  up  his  mind  to  lay  down  his  life  for 
the  Lord,  confronting  dangers  in  which  he  expects  to  lose 
it,  then  that  Latin,  that  seems  so  plain,  becomes  obscure, 
and  he  only  understands  it  to  whom  God  in  His  infinite 
mercy  gives  the  power  of  understanding. 

But  whatever  his  habitual  mood  may  have  been,  Xavier 
went  about  with  a  high  spirit  and  no  outward  show  of 
dejection  or  hesitancy.  Men  find  every  countenance  fair 
to  look  upon  from  which  courage,  faith,  and  innocence  shine 
forth ;  and,  in  addition  to  such  radiance,  Xavier  had  a  genial 
charm,  a  social  gift,  and  a  native  tact,  that  long  intimacy 
with  Ignatius  must  have  quickened  and  increased.  He 
would  watch  the  soldiers  at  their  games,  and  if  out  of 
deference  toward  him  they  wished  to  stop,  he  bade  them 
go  on,  saying  that  they  were  soldiers  not  monks;  and  he 
would  go  to  their  houses  and  chat  with  them;  and,  if  he 


280 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


stayed  to  a  meal,  he  would  praise  the  food  and  the  cooking, 
ask  who  could  prepare  such  dishes,  and  when  the  pleased 
host  called  in  the  cook,  he  would  compliment  and  thank 
her.  One  particular  instance  of  his  behaviour  will,  per¬ 
haps,  make  clearer  the  nature  of  his  influence.  On  a  cer¬ 
tain  voyage  the  pilot  of  the  ship  acknowledged  that  he  had 
not  been  to  confession  for  a  long  time, — I  quote  from 
Xavier’s  earliest  biographer — : 

But  finally  he  disclosed  his  wound  to  Father  Francisco, 
who  encouraged  him  and  did  all  he  could  to  facilitate  the 
cure,  and  so  the  pilot  promised  to  confess  to  him  when  they 
got  ashore;  nevertheless,  embarrassed  and  dismayed  by 
shame  and  timidity,  he  avoided  the  Father,  tried  to  escape, 
and  even  hid  himself.  But  in  vain  he  tried  to  escape  from 
him  that  was  in  pursuit;  for  the  Father  met  him  on  the 
beach.  The  pilot  was  in  great  confusion  from  shamefaced¬ 
ness,  but  the  Father  greeted  him  most  cordially,  began  chat¬ 
ting  familiarly,  and  gave  him  time  to  collect  himself,  and 
then  in  order  to  make  confession  easy,  said,  “Why  not  con¬ 
fess  as  we  walk  up  and  down  the  beach?”  And  he  walked 
along,  side  by  side  with  him,  in  order  to  relieve  his  embar¬ 
rassment.  So  the  pilot  plucked  up  courage,  and  little  by 
little  began  to  tell  one  thing  and  then  another,  until  finally 
Father  Francis  with  his  ready  ways,  his  graciousness,  and  his 
charity,  won  him  over,  and  he  felt  his  heart  so  pricked  by 
compunction  that,  sobbing  and  crying,  he  made  up  his  mind 
to  unbosom  himself  completely.  They  went  into  a  church ; 
the  pilot  made  a  full  confession,  and  resolved  to  live  a  new 
life.  And  so  he  did  until  he  died,  making  much  account  of 
his  conscience,  and  going  to  confession. 


Xavier’s  success  in  saving  multitudes  of  souls,  as  he  be¬ 
lieved,  and  the  love  that  he  inspired  among  people  every¬ 
where,  both  the  Portuguese  and  natives,  must  have  been 
of  great  comfort  to  him,  especially  after  more  Jesuits  came 
out,  as  they  did  from  time  to  time,  and  he  felt  that  the 
Society  he  loved  so  much  was  accomplishing  a  great  work. 
Nevertheless  the  yearning  for  his  old  friends  never  left 


FRANCIS  XAVIER 


281 


him.  Mails  came  at  best  but  twice  a  year,  and  often  less 
frequently  because  of  the  uncertainties  of  navigation.  On 
January  27,  1545,  he  writes: 

It  is  four  years  since  I  left  Portugal  and  in  all  this  time 
I  have  only  received  one  letter  from  you  in  Rome,  and  two 
from  Master  Simon  in  Portugal.  I  want  to  hear  every  year 
news  of  you  and  of  all  the  members  of  the  Society,  all  the 
particulars.  I  am  sure  that  you  must  have  written  every 
year,  just  as  I  write  regularly  every  year.  But  I  am  afraid 
that,  as  I  have  not  received  your  letters,  you  have  not  re¬ 
ceived  mine. 

The  story  of  these  years  contains  much  poetry;  but  it  is 
seldom,  if  ever,  that  the  tale  of  a  missionary’s  labors  does 
not  require  some  chapters  to  be  told  in  prose.  There  seems 
to  be  an  inevitable  connection  between  missionaries, 
merchants  and  punitive  expeditions.  I  quote  again  from 
the  Jesuit  Father,  Alessandro  Valignani,  Xavier’s  earliest 
biographer: 

He  used  to  tell  the  natives  that  if  they  became  Christians, 
they  would  have  the  good  will  of  the  Portuguese,  and  live 
in  security,  for  under  the  protection  of  their  fleets  they 
could  trade  and  fish  freely.  The  Commandant  at  Quilom, 
with  the  Father’s  approval,  often  interfered  with  their  fish¬ 
ing,  in  order  both  to  quicken  their  interest  and  to  punish 
their  misbehaviour.  .  .  .  Xavier  sometimes  promised  fa¬ 
vours;  sometimes  he  added  menaces  that  the  Commandant 
would  stop  their  fishing  and  trading,  and  so  he  induced 
a  great  many  to  become  Christians,  as  the  Lord  says, 
“ corny ellendo  eos  intrare  ad  nuptias.” 

But  if  we  can  save  men  from  eternal  damnation  by  driv¬ 
ing  them  into  the  Christian  fold,  should  we  be  discriminat¬ 
ing  and  fastidious  and  cavil  over  the  manner  of  getting 
them  in?  Nobody  who  believed  in  eternal  damnation  ever 
hesitated  to  approve  such  action.  Criticism  of  these  means 
of  conversion  only  begins  when  men  come  to  believe  that 
there  are  other  doors  to  eternal  life  than  a  particular  church, 
or  that  there  is  no  damnation  hereafter. 


282 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Xavier’s  labors  in  the  East  lasted  about  ten  years. 
Death  crowned  his  life  in  a  most  fitting  fashion.  He  was 
on  his  way  to  China.  The  Chinese  authorities  would  not 
permit  Europeans  to  enter,  and  Xavier  bided  his  time  on 
a  barren  coast,  waiting  to  be  smuggled  in.  An  old  hulk, 
with  some  Portuguese  aboard,  was  anchored  off  shore,  but 
Xavier,  being  ill,  and  distressed  by  the  rolling  of  the  vessel, 
was  taken  to  a  little  hut  of  mud  and  branches  on  the  beach. 
He  grew  worse,  could  not  eat  the  poor  food  that  the  ship 
sent  him,  and  with  no  doctor  or  priest,  in  the  company 
of  two  Chinese  boys  only,  he  breathed  his  last.  So  virtuous 
and  blameless  was  his  life,  that  all  the  people  in  that  part 
of  the  world  repeated  to  one  another  stories  of  the  miracles 
he  had  wrought. 

The  fruits  of  his  labors  and  sacrifice  were  not  confined 
to  Asia.  His  letters  were  copied — circularized  is  the  word 
we  use  now — and  copies  sent  to  all  the  Jesuit  missions  in 
Europe,  and  served  as  most  potent  propaganda  to  win  the 
good  will  and  support  of  persons  in  authority. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 


PIERRE  LEFEVRE 

I  have  now  given  in  rude  outline  a  sketch,  or  rather  a 
suggestion,  of  what  the  Jesuit  Fathers  accomplished  in 
Italy,  Portugal,  Spain,  France,  Germany,  Austria  and 
India,  during  Loyola's  lifetime.  My  purpose  has  been  to 
tell  no  more  than  was  necessary  in  order  to  understand 
Loyola's  purposes  and  ambitions,  and  the  devotion  with 
which  he  inspired  his  disciples.  To  understand  the  head 
or  heart,  it  is  necessary  to  know  what  the  hands  and  feet 
are  doing.  I  think,  however,  that,  bearing  in  mind  the 
reader's  gratitude  for  brevity  and  the  limits  of  my  sub¬ 
ject,  I  have  said  enough;  I  shall  pass  over  without  further 
mention  the  missions  to  Brazil  and  Ethiopia. 

The  impression,  I  think,  that  these  last  chapters  would  be 
likely  to  convey,  is  an  impression  of  dash  and  energy,  of  a 
blind  obedience,  like  that  of  the  Light  Brigade  at  Balaklava. 
And,  perhaps,  a  criticism  similar  to  that  made  upon  the 
famous  charge,  may  spring  to  the  reader's  mind:  C’est 
magnifique  mats  ce  n’est  pas  la  religion.  I  will  not  attempt 
to  define  religion.  It  seems  to  me  a  very  personal  matter, 
consisting  mainly  perhaps  in  the  emotions  that  color  man's 
consciousness  of  his  relations  with  whatever  he  conceives 
reality  to  be.  I  wish,  however,  not  to  slur  over  the  fact, — 
as  one  might  be  in  danger  of  doing  in  an  exposition  of  such 
achievements  of  constructive  organization — that  the  early 
disciples  of  Ignatius  were  men  of  loving,  innocent  hearts, 
some  of  them  holy  men.  Obedience  and  energy  were  not 
their  only  qualities;  nor  was  it  in  the  main  to  those  quali¬ 
ties,  or  to  their  knowledge  of  theology  and  power  of  exposi¬ 
tion,  that  their  success  was  due.  They  possessed,  in  varying 
degrees,  the  apostolic  virtues.  That  of  loveableness  ap¬ 
pears  more  clearly  in  Pierre  Lefevre,  perhaps,  than  in  any 

283 


284 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


of  the  others,  not  even  excepting  Xavier  or  Claude  Jay, 
because  of  his  innocent  simplicity  of  soul;  and  therefore, 
before  going  into  the  details  of  Loyola’s  life  in  Rome,  I 
shall  devote  a  few  pages  to  him,  merely  reminding  the 
reader  again  that  one  must  judge  a  man  by  his  friends, 
that  Lefevre  was  Loyola’s  first  disciple,  that  the  two  were 
drawn  together  at  once  and  remained  devoted  comrades  all 
their  lives. 

The  editors  of  Lefevre’s  letters  call  him  Catholicorum 
columen,  Haeresum  impugnator,  Societatis  amplificator. 
Those  are  not  the  epithets  I  should  have  chosen,  but  no 
doubt  they  are  deserved.  He  conducted  missions  in  the 
same  general  fashion  as  Lainez  and  the  others,  first  in 
Northern  Italy  and  afterwards  in  Germany.  Ignatius  used 
to  say  that  he  taught  the  Spiritual  Exercises  better  than 
any  of  them.  And  a  younger  companion  says:  “He  was 
able  to  comfort  such  as  were  in  affliction  or  tormented  with 
doubt,  he  gave  strength  to  those  in  temptation,  and,  taught 
by  what  he  himself  had  suffered,  he  had  learned  compas¬ 
sion.”  At  the  Diet  of  Worms,  held  in  1540,  he  came  into 
contact  with  the  Lutheran  Reformers,  and  perceived  how 
badly  things  were  going  for  the  conservatives.  Melanchthon 
was  also  in  attendance;  and  some  Catholics  were  desirous 
that  Lefevre  should  hold  conference  with  him,  but  it  was 
judged  more  prudent  that  religious  discussions  should  be  left 
in  the  hands  of  the  accredited  representatives  of  the  Church. 
This  decision  was  probably  wrong.  The  ancient  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  order  of  Latin  Christendom  was  doomed.  The  old  con¬ 
ception  of  unity,  originally  handed  down  by  the  Roman 
Empire  to  the  Roman  Church,  of  one  head,  one  administra¬ 
tive  whole,  one  common  interpretation  of  things  unseen 
embodied  in  a  common  formula,  had  cracked  under  the 
pulls  and  tugs  of  centrifugal  forces,  under  the  egotisms  of 
race,  of  nationality,  of  personal  and  dynastic  ambitions. 
But  the  degrees  of  loosening  and  separation,  or  local  self- 
control,  were  still  to  be  determined,  and  it  was  still  to  be 
proved  whether  these  changes  should  be  carried  out  in 
kindliness  of  spirit  or  in  passion  and  anger.  Lefevre  no 
doubt  was  ignorant  of  the  intellectual  currents  that  had 


PIERRE  LEFEVRE 


285 


unscrewed  the  bolts  and  undone  the  knots  that  had  held 
Christendom  together,  and  his  simple  piety  would  have 
been  no  match  for  the  fierce  dogmatism  of  the  Lutheran 
extremists,  but  his  sweetness  of  character  could  hardly  have 
failed  to  beget  a  strong  personal  regard  in  Melanchthon.  At 
any  rate  their  meeting  could  have  done  the  Catholic  cause 
no  harm.  Eck  and  Pflug  argued  and  disputed,  and  only 
widened  the  rift. 

Lefevre  felt  a  great  tenderness  for  the  Germans.  He 
says: 

Grandes  ramos  de  amor  y  charidad  me  penetran  muy  a 
menudo  desta  nation,  y  grandes  sperangas  de  poder  hazer 
mucho  jruto  con  tiempo  por  nuestro  modo  de  proceder: 
(Great  shoots  of  love  and  charity  for  this  nation  go  through 
and  through  me,  and  great  hopes  that  our  way  of  procedure 
will  with  time  bring  forth  much  fruit.) 

Altogether  it  was  a  period  of  emotional  exaltation,  and 
Lefevre  in  his  Memoriale  records  both  his  trials  and  his 
spiritual  blessings: 

Forget  not,  0  my  soul,  the  memorable  consolations  which 
God  bestowed  upon  thee  in  answer  to  thy  prayers  at  Worms, 
a  knowledge  of  new  ways  to  pray,  new  ways  to  render 
thanks  to  God,  to  ask  for  favors  for  thyself,  and  both  for 
the  living  and  for  the  dead, — prayers  suggested  to  thee  by 
the  Holy  Ghost. 

At  the  Diet  Lefevre  did  not  play  a  public  part  of  any 
great  consequence.  He  was  not  a  great  preacher,  his 
health  was  poor,  and  his  body  frail;  and  he  usually  con¬ 
fined  himself  to  personal  persuasion  and  exhortation,  with 
but  one  or  two  hearers  at  a  time.  He  brings  to  one’s  mind 
the  first  disciples  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  Brother  Bernard, 
or  Giles,  or  Sylvester.  When  he  went  through  the  country 
from  one  town  to  another,  he  used  to  pray  to  the  arch¬ 
angel  that  watched  over  the  whole  region,  and  to  all  the 
several  guardian  angels  of  the  townsfolk  and  peasants,  and 


286 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


to  the  Christ  “qui  est  in  ecclesia  eiusdem  loci  ”  beseeching 
them  to  bless  him,  his  companions,  and  all  the  people  of 
the  place  who  might  be  in  want,  or  ill  health  or  need  of 
any  kind,  and  also  for  the  remission  of  their  sins.  In  Ger¬ 
many  he  commended  himself  in  especial  to  the  Three  Kings, 
to  the  Eleven  Thousand  Virgins  of  Cologne,  to  St.  Ursula, 
and  to  St.  Pinosa  “whose  head  I  saw  with  my  own  eyes 
in  a  monastery  of  St.  Benedict.”  One  of  his  disciples, 
Canisius,  says  of  him: 

Lefevre  had  a  wonderful  sedulousness  in  prayer,  especially 
while  he  was  sojourning  in  Germany,  where  he  besought 
God  for  the  salvation  of  the  Germans,  all  of  them  together 
and  each  individually.  He  used  to  return  thanks,  in  the 
name  of  the  country  and  of  the  town  where  he  was  living, 
for  the  divine  benefits  that  had  been  received.  Sometimes 
he  would  beg  for  God’s  mercy  upon  the  children  of  the  in¬ 
habitants;  sometimes  he  besought  spiritual  and  temporal 
blessings  on  the  clergy  and  people  present,  and  he  always 
bore  the  threats  and  insults  of  rowdy  adversaries  with  an 
undaunted  heart,  for  he  had  learned  to  rejoice  in  persecution 
for  Jesus’  sake. 

Of  his  stay  in  Cologne  the  following  anecdote  is  recorded. 
The  Reformed  opinions  were  prevalent,  and  sundry  persons 
animated  by  ill  will  toward  the  Catholics  cast  about  for 
some  excuse  for  backbiting;  so  his  friends  cautioned  him  to 
satisfy  everybody. 

Ah,  my  friends,  he  answered,  if  there  were  none  others 
to  satisfy  except  the  citizens  of  Cologne,  we  should  have 
an  easy  job;  but  there  are  other  spectators  who  look  and 
criticize  us;  God,  angels,  archangels,  powers,  dominions,  and 
all  the  goodly  fellowship  of  saints — to  please  them  and  do 
nothing  to  offend  them  is  a  greater  labor  and  needs  greater 
vigilance;  but  I  thank  you  for  your  kind  caution. 

And  I  may  add  that  in  Cologne  by  his  means  Canisius, 
who  played  a  great  part  in  his  day  and  has  left  a  great 


PIERRE  LEFEVRE  287 

tradition  in  Vienna,  was  brought  into  the  Society;  and  it 
is  interesting  to  find  here  a  third  link  to  connect  the  Society 
with  the  main  tradition  of  mediaeval  German  mysticism,  for 
Canisius  edited  the  writings  of  Johann  Tauler,  and  Tauler 
was  one  of  the  Friends  of  God  and,  if  not  a  pupil  of  Ludolf 
of  Saxony,  was  at  least  acquainted  with  him. 

From  Germany,  as  we  have  seen,  Lefevre  set  out  in 
company  with  Dr.  Ortiz  for  Spain.  On  their  way  through 
France  they  were  cast  into  prison  for  a  week. 

And  for  this  [Lefevre  says]  I  shall  never  forget  God’s 
great  goodness,  for  He  freed  us  of  His  grace  from  those  who 
imprisoned  us,  and  granted  us  the  favor  of  conversing  with 
them,  and  of  sowing  good  seed  in  their  souls,  as  the  captain 
of  the  soldiers  admitted  to  me.  For  it  came  to  pass  that 
the  bowels  of  compassion  that  God  had  given  us  were  not 
made  captive,  nor  troubled,  nor  vexed  with  our  captors. 

A  little  later  he  says : 

On  the  day  of  Saint  Elizabeth,  Queen  of  Hungary,  I 
worshipped  long,  and  held  in  my  thoughts  eight  persons, 
without  regard  to  their  errors,  while  I  prayed  for  them; — 
the  Pope,  the  Emperor,  the  King  of  France,  the  King  of 
England,  the  Grand  Turk,  Bucer  and  Philip  Melanchthon. 
The  reason  was  that  I  knew  that  they  were  condemned  by 
many,  and  so  a  holy  compassion  sent  by  the  Holy  Ghost 
sprang  up  within  me. 

On  entering  Spain  he  commended  himself  and  his  labors 
to  the  principalities,  powers,  archangels,  guardian  angels, 
and  saints,  of  the  various  places  to  which  he  should  go, 
and  to  the  special  saints  of  cities  and  towns  by  name.  It 
was  the  old  pagan  belief  in  the  genius  loci,  picked  up  per¬ 
haps  in  his  boyhood  among  the  country  people  of  Savoy, 
and  ennobled  by  neo-Platonic  and  Christian  notions,  that 
through  local  spiritual  agents  the  Universal  Spirit  of  God 
manifested  itself.  In  Savoy  he  had  worshipped  ( habeo 
devotionem  are  his  words)  St.  Bruno,  the  founder  of  the 


288 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Carthusian  Order,  and,  among  others,  “Peter  Villiardus, 
my  old  teacher,  whom,  though  he  has  not  been  canonized, 
I  regard  as  a  saint.” 

At  Alcala  de  Henares  he  saw  Beatriz  Ramirez  and 
Mencia  de  Benavente,  two  women  who,  the  reader  will 
remember,  had  been  among  Ignatius’s  first  listeners,  and 
had  testified  concerning  his  missions,  when  he  was  under 
investigation  by  the  Inquisition.  Both  women  were  old 
and  infirm.  Beatriz  Ramirez  had  gone  to  a  hospital  to  be 
taken  care  of. 

But  [to  quote  Lefevre’s  letter]  she  remembers  the  good 
works  she  did  when  she  could  go  about  freely,  and  her  spirit 
is  still  vigorous.  She  says  that  if  Padre  Inigo  should  say 
to  her  that  it  was  better  for  her  to  carry  her  cross  about  the 
streets,  working  for  her  neighbors,  than  to  stay  in  the  hos¬ 
pital,  she  would  do  whatever  he  told  her;  or  if  something 
else  seemed  best,  in  the  same  way  she  would  abide  by  what 
he  said.  So  it  would  be  well  for  Father  Inigo  to  write 
her  a  line. 


At  Barcelona  he  saw  more  old  disciples  of  Ignatius, 
among  others  Isabella  Roser.  In  a  letter  to  Ignatius  he 
says: 

When  I  was  talking  to  Isabella  Roser,  she  said  that  by 
Easter,  between  her  and  another  person,  they  would  furnish 
some  money  for  Peter  Codacius’s  church  [which  he  was 
building  in  Rome  for  the  Society] ;  that  she  would  scrape 
together  a  little  at  a  time  and  provide  all  she  could;  and 
she  was  only  waiting  to  hear  what  Master  Inigo  thought, 
to  know  what  course  to  pursue  for  the  rest  of  her  life;  and 
that  she  was  prepared,  if  Padre  Inigo  should  give  her  that 
advice,  to  go  to  Rome,  in  order  to  serve  God  better  and 
more  freely,  and  to  take  with  her  3800  ducats,  to  dispose 
of  as  they  should  counsel.  Dona  Isabel  de  Josa  also  is 
making  a  great  to-do  about  leaving  Barcelona  and  going  to 
Rome.  I  don’t  know  what  will  come  of  it. 


289 


PIERRE  LEFEVRE 

From  Spain  he  was  ordered  back  to  Germany.  The 
journey  from  Madrid  to  Spire  was  beset  with  difficulties 
and  dangers,  robbers  in  Catalonia,  soldiers  in  France,  here¬ 
tics  in  Savoy,  pestilence  in  Germany;  but  such  trials  and 
troubles  could  do  nothing  against  a  man  armed  strong  in 
desire  to  serve  his  God.  He  says: 

On  this  journey  God  bestowed  upon  me  great  feelings 
of  love  and  hope  for  the  heretics  and  for  the  whole  world, 
just  as  He  had  done  before,  and  also  a  special  devotion, 
in  faith,  hope  and  charity,  that  shall  last  till  I  die,  for  the 
good  of  seven  cities,  to  wit:  Wittemberg  in  Saxony;  a  par¬ 
ticular  city  in  Sarmatia,  the  name  of  which  I  don’t  know; 
Geneva  in  the  duchy  of  Savoj^;  Constantinople  in  Greece; 
Antioch,  also  in  Greece;  Jerusalem;  and  Alexandria  in 
Africa.  I  mean  to  keep  all  these  cities  in  mind,  in  the  hope 
that  I  or  somebody  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  Christ  will  at 
last  celebrate  divine  worship  in  all  of  them. 

While  in  Germany  he  composed  a  religious  tract,  or 
rather  a  series  of  prayers,  hopes,  praises,  pious  purposes 
and  ejaculations — a  sort  of  religious  diary — following  the 
headings  of  the  different  days  in  the  Church  calendar. 
Among  them  is  this  passage  concerning  the  Society  of  Jesus: 

With  regard  to  my  ever-present  solicitude  for  our 
Society,  I  feel,  under  God’s  disposing,  and  in  devout  rever¬ 
ence  of  mind,  a  strong  desire,  and  not  for  the  first  time. 
It  is  this:  I  have  been  wishing  that  somehow  it  might  come 
about  that  our  Society  should  grow  in  size  and  in  virtue, — 
in  the  number  of  its  members  and  in  their  quality — to  such 
an  extent  that  it  would  at  last  be  able  to  build  up  the  ruins 
of  all  our  religious  doctrines  and  usages,  for  some  are  in 
ruins  now,  and  others  will  be  in  a  short  time,  unless  God 
prevent.  For  this  I  have  been  wishing  that  a  great  number 
of  secular  and  ecclesiastical  persons  could  be  found,  who 
would  forsake  all  they  have,  and  offer  to  do  whatever 
should  be  commanded  them,  according  to  the  Roman 
Church.  Some  of  them  could  be  chosen  for  our  Society, 


290 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


and  undergo  the  novitiate;  and  others  for  other  Orders. 
God  grant  that  this  be  brought  to  pass.  May  He  bring 
forward  persons  who  are  able  to  judge  spirits,  whether  or 
no  they  are  of  God;  and  further  to  judge  concerning  persons 
that  are  of  God,  who  should  live  together  under  one  rule 
and  constitution,  and  who  in  other  ways.  May  Jesus  grant 
us  men  and  women  so  universally  Catholic  in  faith,  hope 
and  charity,  and  so  impelled  hither  and  thither,  far  and 
near  by  this  universal  desire  for  the  restoration  of  all  old 
conditions  in  the  Church,  that  all  monasteries,  all  seats  of 
monks  and  nuns,  may  be  filled  again;  and  last  (but  which 
is  first  in  importance),  that  the  minds,  memories,  wills, 
hearts  and  bodies  of  all  men  may  become  sanctified  and 
perfect  in  Christ  Jesus.  Amen. 

His  piety  breathes  forth  from  whatever  he  writes.  I 
quote  from  a  letter  to  a  French  relation: 

Mayence,  28  May,  1543. 

Tres  cher  et  tres  ayme  cosin  et  frere. 

La  grace  de  nostre  Seigneur  Jesus-Christ  et  sa  doulce 
paix  soyt  havec  vous,  vous  gardant  et  saulvant,  a  present  et 
a  tons  jamais.  Amen.  .  .  . 

I  begin  to  perceive  that  these  heresies  of  the  present  time 
are  nothing  else  than  a  lack  of  devotion,  lack  of  humility, 
of  patience,  chastity,  and  charity.  For  that  reason,  we  must 
practise  those  virtues,  seeking  earnestly  for  the  grace  of 
God  that  is  always  ready  at  hand  for  those  that  ask  it,  and 
are  willing  to  die  in  the  asking. 

Let  us  up  and  wage  war  against  our  mortal  enemies;  and, 
when  of  our  own  free  will  we  can  take  vengeance  upon  our 
servants,  let  us  do  so,  I  mean  on  the  flesh  and  our  desires 
for  outward  things. 

Even  if  in  time  of  prayer  we  are  led  astray  by  the  dis~ 
tractions  of  vice,  or  vanity  or  business,  let  us  take  extra 
heed  when  we  are  exhorting  others,  not  to  fix  our  attention 
on  temporal  things.  Whenever  we  perceive  idle  imaginings 
among  our  thoughts,  let  us  straightway  search  for  the  roots 
from  which  these  weeds  sprung  up.  We  shall  find  repose 


PIERRE  LEFEVRE  291 

in  church,  if  all  the  time  we  are  out  of  church  we  will  strug¬ 
gle  continually  with  ourselves.  If  we  will  battle  vigorously 
and  resist  sins  that  we  know  to  be  venial,  we  shall  soon 
conquer  sins  that  are  mortal;  il  n’est  pas  possible  trouver 
paix  en  nostre  time,  si  nous  volons  reposer  hors  de  nous 
mesmes.  .  .  .  Les  curiosites  et  inutilites,  par  le  moyent  des 
livres,  sans  profit  d’ esprit,  evites-les,  et  pareillement  les  con¬ 
fabulations  qui  n’induysent  point  a  la  paix  eternelle.  .  .  . 
II  se  faut  vaincre;  il  se  faut  renoncer  a  soy-mesmes  et  se 
faire  guerre.  .  .  .  Laissant  nous-mesmes,  nous  gagnons 
Dieu  tout-puissant,  le  Pere,  le  Fils  et  le  benoyt  Saint- 
E sprit;  laissant  le  monde,  nous  gangnons  le  reaulme  des 
cieulx,  qui  est  une  terre  ferme  et  a  tout  jamais  incommu¬ 
table;  finalment,  vainquant  les  mauvais  esprits,  lesquielx 
cherchent  nostre  eternelle  mine,  nous  acquerons  la  faveur 
et  la  bonne  grace  de  tous  les  amis  de  Dieu,  qui  sont  les 
bons  anges,  et  tous  saincts  et  sainctes  de  paradis.  .  .  . 

C’est  de  Mag  once  (Mayence) ,  par  le  tout  vostre,  en  chair 
cosin,  et  en  Jesus  Christ  frere. 

Pierre  Favre, 

de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus  Christ. 

From  Germany  he  was  sent  back  again  to  Spain.  The 
heir  apparent,  afterwards  Philip  II,  who  subsequently  mar¬ 
ried  Bloody  Mary,  had  married  the  daughter  of  the  King 
of  Portugal,  and  it  seemed  an  excellent  opportunity,  as  the 
royal  house  of  Portugal  was  most  friendly,  to  give  the 
Society  of  Jesus  a  real  foundation  in  Spain.  After  some 
delay  from  illness  Lefevre  went  (1544),  carrying  with  him 
the  head  of  one  of  the  Eleven  Thousand  Virgins  of  Cologne 
and  other  sacred  bones,  which  he  presented  to  the  Jesuit 
College  at  Coimbra.  He  did  more  than  that,  he  wrote  (it 
would  seem  for  the  students  there)  a  little  tract  on  obedi¬ 
ence,  a  virtue  of  which,  as  we  have  seen,  they  stood  in  need. 
The  voice  is  the  voice  of  Lefevre,  but  the  words  are  the 
words  of  Ignatius: 

Obedience  must  be  blind;  that  is  to  say,  he  that  is  truly 
obedient  must  not  look  for  love,  nor  reasonableness,  nor 


292 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


any  understanding  of  what  fruit  there  may  be  in  the  work 
upon  which  he  is  sent. 

When  it  shall  happen  by  God’s  grace  (and  from  the  very 
fact  that  we  go  blindfold)  that  a  perception  of  what  fruit 
there  is  in  the  labors  to  which  we  are  sent  opens  before  us, 
nevertheless,  we  must  try  not  to  lose  the  spirit  with  which 
we  bow  in  blind  obedience,  even  though  a  new  and  different 
task  be  commanded,  and  we  be  called  off  from  what  we  were 
doing.  It  is  necessary  for  those  subject  to  command  never 
to  settle  down  to  rest  anywhere,  no,  not  to  a  labor  com¬ 
manded,  not  even  if  they  feel  a  clear  and  saintly  desire  in 
it;  I  mean  to  rest  in  any  such  fashion  as  to  slacken  the 
promptitude  that  belongs  to  obedience.  .  .  . 

To  sum  up,  obedience,  as  I  have  said,  must  be  blind, 
both  in  contemplation  of  the  work  and  in  execution,  dis¬ 
passionate  and  free  from  any  fleshly  or  worldly  affection, 
taking  as  its  pattern  those  words  of  perfection  that  Christ 
our  Lord  spoke  to  us  in  the  Gospel:  “If  any  man  will  come 
after  me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and 
follow  me,”  that  is  to  say  denying  to  ourselves  every  per¬ 
sonal  inclination,  capacity,  feeling,  will  and  opinion,  and 
submitting  ourselves  in  every  respect  to  the  inclination, 
capacity,  feeling,  will  and  opinion  of  our  superiors,  taking 
up  our  own  cross  and  not  another’s,  although  his  may  seem 
to  us  an  easier  cross  to  bear;  and,  with  all  humility  and 
patience,  being  ready  to  suffer  whatever  may  befall  us  at 
the  hand  of  our  Lord,  following  Christ  with  the  cross  of 
such  labors,  at  whose  hand  we  hope  to  receive  our  reward, 
as  is  said:  “The  husbandman  that  laboreth  must  be  first 
partaker  of  the  fruits.” 

From  Coimbra  Lefevre  set  out  on  his  mission  to  establish 
the  Society  in  Spain.  He  was  still  at  Valladolid  when  the 
Princess  Mary,  wife  of  Philip,  died,  leaving  the  unfortunate 
infant  Don  Carlos  to  grow  up  to  mystery  and  tragedy;  and 
he  was  still  there  when  the  Emperor’s  daughter  Margaret, 
Duchess  of  Parma — destined  to  become  famous  in  history  as 
Regent  of  the  Netherlands  in  the  time  of  William  the  Silent 
and  the  beginning  of  the  Dutch  struggle  for  independence 


PIERRE  LEFEVRE  293 

from  Spain — gave  birth  to  twins  in  Rome,  one  of  whom, 
at  the  parents’  request,  was  baptized  by  Ignatius.  I  men¬ 
tion  these  dealings  with  royalty,  for  they  are  straws  to 
show  how  the  wind  blows;  the  Jesuits  are  already  in  close 
intimacy  with  the  King  and  Queen  of  Portugal,  and  on 
friendly  terms  with  the  royal  house  of  Spain,  and  the  royal 
house  of  Spain  is  the  dominant  power  in  European  politics. 

While  at  Valladolid,  Lefevre  wrote  this  entry  in  his 
Memoriale: 

Another  day,  when  I  was  very  low  in  my  mind  and  de¬ 
pressed  by  troubles  and  bitterness  due  to  a  lack  of  true 
brotherly  love  and  humility  towards  those  who  had  found 
fault  with  me,  I  lifted  up  my  soul  toward  God,  and  I  per¬ 
ceived  that  all  other  things  are  as  nothing;  and  that  the 
very  best  remedy  in  such  moments  is  for  me  to  lift  my  soul. 
For  then,  when  my  soul  is  lifted  up  on  high,  no  darts  that 
can  be  thrown  have  power  to  hurt  it;  I  do  not  feel  them. 
Neither  word,  nor  sting,  can  follow  there;  nor  mount  up 
to  the  spirit  that  stands  erect  before  God.  No  scourge 
comes  near  His  tabernacle.  So  lift  up  your  mind  right 
speedily  when  aught  of  earth,  in  word  or  deed,  touches  your 
spirit;  and  that,  whether  it  tend  to  human  joy  or  to  vain 
sorrow.  And  a  longing  comes  over  me  of  advancing  towards 
the  mystery  of  the  ascension  of  our  Lord,  for  in  His  ascen¬ 
sion  we  are  lifted  above  earthly  things,  now  only  in  the 
spirit,  but  at  last  also  in  the  body,  even  according  to  physi¬ 
cal  sense. 

And  in  another  entry: 

An  inclination  always  comes  over  me  when  I  am  at  an 
inn,  to  edify  by  teaching  and  exhortation.  It  is  always  of 
profit  in  the  sight  of  Christ  and  His  court,  to  leave  in  inns 
or  houses,  where  we  happen  to  stop,  some  signs  of  holy 
living;  for  everywhere  we  can  build  up,  everywhere  we  can 
either  plant  or  reap,  and  we  are  debtors  to  all  men  in  every 
condition,  in  every  place.  Let  us  humbly  imitate  the  Most 
High  God  who  takes  heed  of  us  and  comforts  us;  we  also 
are  His  fellow-laborers. 


294 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


A  little  later  we  find  him  writing  to  Lainez,  rules  or 
counsels  for  winning  back  heretics.  I  think  that  they  all 
went  to  Lefevre  when  they  had  need  of  sweetness;  for  light 
they  went  to  Ignatius.  Lefevre’s  first  rule  is:  whoever 
wishes  to  do  good  to  heretics  at  the  present  day,  must  see 
that  he  has  much  charity  towards  them,  and  loves  them 
truly,  casting  out  from  his  spirit  all  antagonisms. 

When  he  left  Spain,  the  colleges  at  Coimbra,  Alcala, 
Valencia,  Gandia  and  Barcelona  had  been,  at  least  inform¬ 
ally,  founded.  He  got  back  to  Rome  in  July,  and  died  on 
the  1st  of  August,  1546.  According  to  the  records  of  the 
Company  his  spirit  joined  that  of  Jean  Coduri:  “Then- 
souls  found  one  another  in  heaven  (as  their  bodies  met  to¬ 
gether  in  Santa  Maria  della  Strada),  and  both,  in  one 
another’s  company,  likewise  abide  with  us  here  in  Rome.” 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


rome  in  loyola's  time 

Rome,  in  the  years  round  and  about  1540  and  1550,  lay 
shrunken  within  the  Aurelian  walls,  as  if  enveloped  in  a 
giant’s  robe.  On  the  Pincian  Hill  there  was  scarce  a  build¬ 
ing  to  be  seen,  the  charming  new  villa  erected  for  Cardinal 
Ricci,  now  the  Villa  Medici,  stood  on  what  might  have  been 
the  edge  of  an  English  common ;  and  as  one  went  from  the 
Villa  Medici  to  Santa  Trinita  dei  Monti,  and  then  on  along 
the  Via  Felix,  now  the  Via  Sistina,  to  Santa  Maria  Mag- 
giore,  all  the  space  within  the  walls  to  the  north  and  east, 
as  far  as .  the  Porta  Salaria,  Porta  Pia  and  the  Campo 
Militare,  was  occupied  by  gardens,  vineyards,  olive  groves, 
and  vegetable  patches,  shaded  by  rows  or  clumps  of  trees, 
with  a  few  churches  and  villas  scattered  in  among  them. 
And  the  streets  that  ran  from  Santa  Maria  Maggiore  south¬ 
westerly  towards  the  Forum  virtually  separated  town  from 
country,  for  all  the  region  east  and  south  of  the  Esquiline 
and  Palatine  hills,  was  a  sort  of  wild  park  for  horticulture 
or  nature  to  take  its  ease  in.  So  was  the  Aventine  Hill. 
The  Forum  Romanum  “overwrought  with  forest  branches 
and  the  trodden  weed”  was  half  a  cow  pasture,  half  a  waste 
haunted  by  Silence  and  slow  Time ;  at  the  foot  of  the  Pala¬ 
tine  Hill,  in  the  cool  of  the  ruined  arches  that  once  sup¬ 
ported  the  imperial  palace,  goat-herds  lay  on  the  grass  in 
summer  days  and  watched  their  goats,  while  shepherd  lads 
drove  their  sheep  along  the  Sacra  Via  or  drovers  shouted  at 
cattle  that  ran  loose  up  the  Clivus  Victoria.  The  site  of 
the  Circus  Maximus  was  cut  up  into  vegetable  beds  and 
irrigated  by  the  little  brook  Marrana.  Remains  of  ancient 
edifices  lay  all  about,  much  more  than  now.  Within  the 
inhabited  district,  pavements,  fragments  of  wall  and  scat¬ 
tered  blocks  testified  to  the  magnificence  of  the  colonnades 

295 


296 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


and  arched  walks  that  once  connected  the  Roman  Forum 
with  Trajan’s;  and,  out  in  the  southerly  parts,  in  the  fields 
within  the  walls,  where  hunters  went  fowling,  masons  quar¬ 
ried  and  lovers  of  ancient  art  went  digging  for  treasures, 
the  mighty  ruins  of  the  imperial  thermae,  covered  with 
weeds,  wild  herbs,  bushes  and  grasses,  showed  like  fantasti¬ 
cal  creations  of  nature.  Across  the  river,  in  Trastevere, 
over  the  flat  land  and  up  the  hill  to  San  Pietro  in  Mon- 
torio,  and  on  all  the  slopes  of  the  Janiculum,  the  story  was 
much  the  same,  vineyards,  vegetable  patches,  or  pleasure 
gardens  with  flowers  and  orange  trees,  encompassed  a  villa 
here  and  a  church  there. 

The  built-up  parts  of  the  city  began  to  the  north  of  the 
Capitoline  Hill.  Houses,  sometimes  detached,  sometimes 
close  to  one  another  with  walls  in  common,  were  grouped 
in  blocks,  called  islands,  which  were  separated  and  sur¬ 
rounded  by  little  crooked,  unpaved  streets;  excepting  those 
of  the  rich,  they  were  of  a  simple  somewhat  distrustful 
appearance,  usually  of  two  stories;  the  roofs  were  ridged 
and  tiled,  the  windows  few  and  round  topped,  the  doors 
protected  by  a  penthouse.  The  Cor  so  was  almost  the  only 
straight  road  in  the  city;  kept  so,  it  might  seem,  for  the 
gay  days  of  the  carnival,  when  horses,  donkeys,  buffaloes, 
and  aged  Jews  ran  involuntary  races.  The  dwelling  first 
occupied  by  Ignatius  was  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  that  leads 
up  to  Santa  Trinita  dei  Monti,  near  the  present  Piazza  di 
Spagna,  and  looked  out  on  the  open  hillside  with  vineyards 
and  fields;  whereas  the  house  by  the  Torre  de  la  Melangola 
was  in  a  built-up  neighborhood,  to  the  west  of  the  Palazzo 
Venezia,  near  the  little  church  of  Santa  Maria  della  Strada, 
which  was  afterwards  pulled  down  to  make  room  for  the 
Gesu.  The  first  house  built  for  the  Jesuits  (1543)  was  also 
put  there. 

At  this  time  most  of  the  famous  buildings  of  the  Renais¬ 
sance  had  been  already  built,  the  palace  of  the  Cancelleria, 
the  Villa  Farnesina,  the  Palazzo  Madama,  where  the  Em¬ 
peror’s  daughter,  Margaret,  the  friend  and  patron  of  the 
early  Jesuits,  dwelt,  the  Palazzo  Farnese  though  still  lack¬ 
ing  the  glorious  cornice  that  Michelangelo  was  to  add,  and 


ROME  IN  LOYOLA’S  TIME 


297 


some  forty  other  palaces  and  mansions,  belonging  mostly 
to  great  prelates  or  to  their  near  relations.  The  Basilica  of 
St.  Peter’s  was  in  the  course  of  construction  under  plans 
that  kept  changing  as  one  architect  succeeded  to  another, 
the  new  choir  was  not  finished,  and  the  great  dome  not  yet 
begun;  the  old  nave  still  stood  and  the  fagade  of  the  old 
church  still  looked  upon  the  time-honored  piazza.  Michel¬ 
angelo  had  been  put  in  charge  in  the  early  years  of  Paul  III, 
and  his  autocratic,  contemptuous  ways  were  driving  the 
board  of  works  crazy  with  apprehensions  and  vexation. 
The  long  covered  way  between  the  Vatican  and  the  Castle 
of  St.  Angelo,  which  had  enabled  Clement  VII  to  escape 
when  Bourbon’s  soldiers  scaled  the  walls  of  the  Borgo, 
showed  how  little  the  Papal  Curia  dared  trust  to  law  and 
order.  The  Sistine  Chapel,  Raphael’s  Stanze,  the  Apparta- 
menti  Borgia,  statues  and  frescoes  in  a  score  of  churches,  are 
proof  enough  of  the  genius  that  had  been  lavished  to  make 
Rome  beautiful.  Nevertheless,  the  Eternal  City  was  not 
what  she  had  been  in  the  pontificate  of  Leo  X;  she  had  been 
maimed  and  disfigured  in  the  terrible  sack  of  1527,  and,  like 
a  mutilated  statue  of  Hera,  was  destined  never  to  recover 
the  radiance  of  her  former  beauty. 

There  were  many  who  thought  that  Rome  deserved  what 
she  got.  Juan  Valdes  makes  St.  Peter  say,  “Behold  the 
judgment  of  God.”  However  that  may  be,  the  corrupt 
regime  paid  the  penalty,  and  came  to  an  end  in  horror  and 
suffering.  From  that  date — I  speak  approximately — the 
Catholic  Reform  began.  I  am  not  concerned  with  the  old 
regime.  The  peculiar  rottenness  of  morals  and  manners 
under  the  Borgias  passed  with  them,  but  the  generation  now 
dominant  in  papal  affairs  had  been  bred  in  that  atmosphere. 
Paul  III  owed  his  cardinal’s  hat,  which  he  received  at  the 
age  of  twenty-five,  to  the  beauty  of  his  sister,  “belle  a  mer- 
veilles”  according  to  the  reputation  that  lingered  on,  and 
confirmed  by  a  picture  of  the  Madonna  painted  in  her  like¬ 
ness;  and  Paul  III,  though  he  became  a  great  reformer, 
made  no  bones  as  to  his  relation  to  his  nipoti.  Such 
abominations  as  the  Borgias  perpetrated  were  not  con¬ 
tinued,  but  the  military  fervor  of  Julius  II  and  the  luxurious 


298 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


tastes  of  Leo  X  smacked  equally  little  of  Christianity. 
Pietro  Aretino  writes  to  a  friend  (1537):  “ L’innocentia  e 

una  bestiuola  parlante  e  inquieta;  e  V  honor  e  un’ 
bestionaccio  sensitivo,  e  ritroso.”  (“Innocence  is  a  restless 
chattering  little  beast,  and  honor  an  irritable,  obstinate  big 
brute.”)  I  recall  this  indifference  of  the  Renaissance  to  re¬ 
ligion  solely  in  order  to  give  the  proper  background  to  the 
reforming  spirit;  and  I  shall  confine  myself  to  two  refer¬ 
ences,  one  to  politics,  the  other  to  the  interest  in  pagan  art. 

On  the  death  of  Leo  X,  both  Charles  V  and  Henry  VIII, 
that  “most  beloved,  most  excellent,  and  most  puissant 
Prince,  our  most  dear  brother,  cousin  and  fair  Uncle,”  were 
deeply  interested  in  the  choice  of  his  successor.  But  inter¬ 
meddling  was  risky  for  it  might  act  like  a  boomerang. 
Henry  despatched  two  letters  to  his  ambassador  in  Rome, 
couched  in  identical  language,  advocating  the  choice  of 
Wolsey  in  one,  and  of  Cardinal  Giulio  dei  Medici  in  the 
other,  and  advised  his  dear  nephew  Charles  to  do  the  same. 
Wolsey  was  craftily  ambitious  for  the  tiara;  he  told  thes& 
two  sovereigns  that  the  chief  advantage  from  his  election 
would  be  that  “they  might  direct  and  dispose  of  his  power 
and  authority  as  if  the  Holy  See  were  in  their  possession.” 
Charles  inquired  what  he  could  do  to  help  so  desirable  an 
issue.  Wolsey  was  clear  enough:  “Nothing  would  con¬ 
tribute  more  towards  determining  the  election  in  my  favor 
than  the  march  of  the  Imperial  troops  now  in  Italy  towards 
Rome;  and  in  case  neither  presents  nor  good  words  have 
their  effect  on  the  College  of  Cardinals,  they  should  be  com¬ 
pelled  by  main  force  to  the  choice  which  his  Majesty  ap¬ 
proves.”  He,  himself,  was  ready  to  pay  out  100,000  ducats. 
Charles,  who  had  inherited  much  of  the  political  hypocrisy 
that  had  done  so  much  for  his  grandfather,  Ferdinand  of 
Aragon, — Macchiavelli’shero — answered  that  he  would  leave 
nothing  undone,  he  was  ready  with  letters  and  harangues, 
“mais  aussy  quand  il  serait  besoing  avec  la  main,  y  en  em- 
ploiant  toute  Varmee  que  fay  en  Italie,  que  n’est  pas 
petite .”  It  is  not  surprising  that  Baldassare  Castiglione 
during  a  papal  conclave  exclaimed,  “Nostro  Signor  Dio 
mandi  al  Spirito  Santo,  che  ve  n’e  grandissimo  bisogno .” 


ROME  IN  LOYOLA’S  TIME 


299 


(“Please  God  send  the  Holy  Ghost  for  there  is  great  need  of 
Him.”)  Charles  V  was  no  whit  worse  than  other  monarchs. 
Pietro  Aretino  ran  no  risk  of  shocking  Francis  Ps  sensibili¬ 
ties  by  writing  to  him  (1538) :  “Political  interest  pays  no 
regard  to  right,  it  knows  nothing  sacred,  does  not  swerve 
aside  for  the  blandishments  of  honesty,  and  when  it  is  in 
pursuit  of  something,  wrong  is  right,  and  the  blameworthy 
becomes  laudable.”  The  policy  and  practice  of  the  Papal 
Curia  was  of  a  piece  with  this.  Cardinal  Jean  du  Bellay 
from  his  experience  as  ambassador  in  Rome,  concluded  that 
cardinals  were  not  to  be  talked  over  but  to  be  bought,  that 
the  one  motive  power  was  “auriflue  energie.”  Ribade- 
neira,  who  lived  for  a  time  as  page  in  the  palace  of  Cardinal 
Alessandro  Farnese,  calls  that  household  “a  bog,  a  quagmire, 
an  abyss  of  hell.”  All  this  is  only  too  familiar.  I  shall, 
however,  make  one  further  reference  to  what  Loyola  must 
have  thought  the  very  unchristian  interest  in  pagan 
antiquities.  • 

Jean  du  Bellay,  bishop  of  Paris,  and  later  Cardinal,  had 
come  to  Rome,  as  French  ambassador,  for  the  purpose, 
among  others,  of  arranging  the  marriage  of  Prince  Henry 
of  France  with  Catherine  dei  Medici,  and  had  conducted 
negotiations  dexterously  enough  with  Clement  VII,  “ce  bon- 
homme,”  as  he  called  him  when  matters  went  smoothly,  or 
“le  vieux  renard”  when  they  did  not.  Du  Bellay  had  in  his 
suite,  a  vivacious  man  of  many  talents  and  variegated  ex¬ 
perience,  Frangois  Rabelais,  already  known  in  France  as  the 
author  of  a  book  called  Pantagruel.  Matters  did  not  go 
quite  so  well  after  Clement’s  death;  the  ambassador  was 
obliged  to  spend  much  of  his  time  in  making  honeyed  prom¬ 
ises  to  Paul  III,  and  in  bestowing  pensions  and  gifts  on 
cardinals,  condottieri,  and  other  gentlemen  of  indigence  and 
appetite  who  might  be  of  use  in  persuading  the  straddling 
Pope  to  incline  the  balance  towards  King  Francis  and  away 
from  Charles,  such  as  the  Orsini,  the  Colonnesi,  and  others. 
But  there  were  periods  of  relaxation,  unless  the  good  bishop 
of  Macon  belied  the  words  of  his  kind  letter  that  invited  du 
Bellay  to  lodge  with  him.  “D’une  chose  vous  suplye-je:  a 
vostre  arrivee  ne  prendre  aultre  maison  que  la  myenne.  .  .  . 


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Si  trouverez  la  cave  assez  bien  garnye  et  espere  vous  faire 
boyre  froict.”  But  the  chief  diversion  was  the  study  of 
antique  art.  Du  Bellay  and  Rabelais  purchased  a  vineyard 
and  began  excavations,  and  Rabelais  worked  over  a  plan  of 
the  monuments  of  ancient  Rome.  Du  Bellay  enriched  his 
own  collection  of  “ anticailles”  and  hunted  about  to  provide 
objets  d’art  for  his  friend  Anne  de  Montmorency,  after¬ 
wards  High  Constable  of  France,  who  was  at  that  time  fur¬ 
nishing  his  chateau  of  Chantilly.  Crafty  Italians  were  at 
hand  to  supply  what  rich  foreigners  might  want.  One 
Signor  Valerio,  secretary  to  an  Italian  cardinal,  graciously 
filled  the  office  of  art  dealer,  and  found  half  a  dozen  antique 
heads,  among  them  one  of  Caesar,  and,  apparently,  a  very 
unusual  head  of  a  woman : 

Una  testa  di  donna.  .  .  .  V.  S.  pud  esser  certa  che  e  bellis- 
sima  et  antica.  E  il  vero  che  Vho  fatta  un  poco  ritoccar  nel 
naso  e  ne  la  bocca  da  maestro  Alfonso.  V.  S.  vedra  la  piu 
bella  acconciatura  de  capegli  et  cosi  finita  che  Ella  vedessi 
gran  pezzo  fa.  Secondo  che  mi  verrano  de  le  cose  alle  mani 
che  sian  degne  di  Lei,  me  ne  ricorderd.  .  .  .  Io  fo  un  poco 
rassettar  una  testa  che  ho  per  S.  Ex  [ Montmorency ]  et 
non  Le  dispiacera  et,  subito  rassettata,  la  daro  medesi- 
mamente  a  M.  di  Macon.  (“Your  Excellency  may  rest 
assured  that  the  head  is  antique  and  very  beautiful.  I  have 
had  maestro  Alfonso  touch  it  up  as  to  the  nose  and  mouth. 
Your  Excellency  will  see  the  loveliest  coiffure  and  so 
carefully  finished! — such  as  you  have  not  seen  in  a  long 
time.  I  shall  keep  you  in  mind  whenever  any  things  worthy 
of  you  come  in  my  way.  ...  I  have  had  a  head  that  is  to 
go  to  Sieur  de  Montmorency  a  little  touched  up.  You  will 
be  pleased  with  it,  and  as  soon  as  the  touching  up  is  finished, 
I  will  give  it  at  once  to  the  Bishop  of  Macon.”) 

In  this  way  Signor  Valerio  and  Maestro  Alfonso  provided 
French  amateurs  with  antique  art  uben  rassettato,>  serving 
together,  all  at  once,  politics,  art  and  Mammon.  And,  of 
course,  interest  in  antique  art  did  not  stand  by  itself.  Paul 
III  merely  swam  with  the  stream  when  he  sat  to  Titian  for 


ROME  IN  LOYOLA’S  TIME 


301 


his  portrait,  to  Giacomo  della  Porta  for  his  bust,  bade 
Michelangelo  paint  the  Last  Judgment  in  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  fresco  the  walls  of  the  Cappella  Paolina,  complete 
the  Palazzo  Farnese,  and  take  charge  of  the  works  of  St. 
Peter’s  basilica,  or  when  he  directed  that  comedies  of 
Terence  or  Macchiavelli  be  played  in  the  Vatican. 

All  this  was  very  harmless,  but  it  is  evidence  how  com¬ 
plete  the  reign  of  pagan  interests  at  Rome  had  been  during 
the  golden  days  of  the  High  Renaissance.  Luther’s  blows, 
straight  out  from  the  shoulder,  changed  the  whole  face  of 
things.  The  idle,  evil,  foolish,  lovers  of  pleasure  hid  their 
heads,  and  innocent-minded,  high-souled  reformers  came  to 
the  fore.  Paul  III  himself  led  the  way.  Cardinals  Con- 
tarini,  Sadoleto,  Caraffa,  Pole,  Aleander,  Fregoso,  Badia, 
Morone  and  Cortese;  bishops  Giberti  of  Verona,  Pio  of 
Carpi,  and  many  others,  came  in  with  new  brooms,  and, 
under  the  Pope’s  direction  or  encouragement,  set  vigorously 
to  work.  I  cannot  attempt  even  a  sketch  of  the  Counter 
Reformation.  The  task  of  reforming  the  Church  was  a 
labor  for  Hercules,  and  would  hardly  have  been  possible, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  attack  from  without.  The  Papal 
Curia  was  worldly,  selfish,  corrupt;  the  cardinals  as  a  rule 
were  men  of  pleasure;  bishops  often  did  not  reside  in  their 
dioceses,  nor  parish  priests  always  in  their  parishes;  many 
prelates  held  a  plurality  of  benefices;  the  secular  clergy  was 
in  large  measure  ignorant  and  lazy;  the  monastic  orders 
careless  of  their  rules  or  worse.  To  all  these  evils  the  re¬ 
formers  within  the  Church  addressed  themselves  with  a  will. 
I  shall  not  recount  their  doings,  neither  their  successes  nor 
failures.  I  merely  wish  to  lay  stress  on  the  fact  that  when 
Ignatius  came  to  Rome,  the  flood  of  reform  was  setting  it. 
He  is  not  entitled  to  the  credit  of  a  pioneer  reformer.  He 
was,  however,  the  one  genius  in  the  Catholic  party,  and  he 
laid  the  foundations  of  religious  reform — where  for  true 
building  it  must  lie — in  the  soul  and  conscience  of  the  in¬ 
dividual  layman.  Nor  was  the  Society  of  Jesus  by  any 
means,  as  one  might  be  led  to  think  from  Jesuit  books,  the 
first  organization  dedicated  to  reform ;  it  was  the  ablest,  the 
most  energetic,  the  most  thorough,  the  most  devoted. 


302 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Other  new  orders  had  preceded  it.  The  earliest  was  the 
Oratory  of  Divine  Love.  This  Society  was  an  outgrowth 
of  a  reaction  against  corruption,  and  was  organized  some¬ 
time  before  the  Lutheran  movement;  the  purpose  of  its 
members,  both  clergymen  and  laymen,  was  to  ennoble  their 
lives  by  religious  exercises,  by  praying  and  preaching,  by 
frequent  recourse  to  the  sacraments,  by  acts  of  charity,  and 
so,  by  means  of  personal  sanctification,  to  reform  the 
Church.  Sadoleto  and  Giberti  were  both  members.  In 
1519  the  Conjratemita  della  Carita  was  organized  for  the 
purpose  of  looking  after  gentlefolks  fallen  upon  evil  days, 
of  visiting  prisons,  and  providing  burial  for  the  very  poor. 
A  few  years  later,  the  order  of  the  Teatini  was  founded  by 
Gaetano  di  Thiene  and  Gian  Pietro  Caraffa.  This  was  the 
order  that  called  out  unsympathetic  criticism  from  Loyola, 
and  so  brought  about  a  lack  of  cordiality  between  him  and 
Caraffa.  The  idea  of  it  was  to  form  a  society  of  single- 
minded  priests,  bound  by  a  rule,  who  should  devote  them¬ 
selves  to  administering  the  sacraments,  to  preaching,  and 
other  religious  and  ecclesiastical  matters,  with  the  special 
purpose  of  setting  an  example  to  secular  priests,  ajid  per¬ 
suading  them  to  return  to  an  apostolic  life.  The  members 
took  the  three  vows.  Poverty  was  of  the  first  obligation; 
they  were  not  even  to  beg,  but  to  wait  for  alms  to  be  given. 
Caraffa  resigned  his  two  sees  and  his  benefices,  and  gave 
away  his  property;  Gaetano  was  of  a  tender  type,  and  used 
to  burst  into  tears  at  the  mystery  of  the  mass.  The  new 
order  aroused  enmity  and  contempt.  After  the  sack  of 
Rome,  the  members,  of  whom  there  were  but  twelve, 
escaped  to  Venice,  where  they  made  close  friends  with  the 
men  in  charge  of  the  Hospital  for  Incurables  as  well  as  with 
Gasparo  Contarini,  who  became  Cardinal,  Reginald  Pole, 
and  other  reformers.  It  was  very  likely  at  this  hospital 
that  Loyola  first  heard  of  them. 

In  1525  the  Order  of  the  Capuchins,  a  reformed  branch  of 
the  Franciscan  Order,  was  organized ;  its  members  lived  like 
hermits,  and  preached  repentance  to  peasants.  Another  re¬ 
forming  body  was  the  Somaschi,  who  performed  their  chari¬ 
table  works  in  and  about  Bergamo  and  Brescia.  This  too 


ROME  IN  LOYOLA’S  TIME 


303 


was  about  the  year  1530.  The  Order  of  the  Barnabites  was 
founded,  in  1533,  at  Milan;  these  priests  held  open-air 
missions,  rather  after  the  fashion  of  the  Salvation  Army, 
as  I  understand  it.  I  give  these  details  concerning  the  na¬ 
ture  and  purposes  of  these  reforming  bodies,  as  evidence 
that  the  Society  of  Jesus — as  it  was  constituted  by  its 
charter  and  constitution — did  not  start  as  an  original  idea 
out  of  an  inventive  mind,  but  was  created  or  compounded 
out  of  ideas  that  were  in  the  air,  and  partially  in  practice. 
Altogether,  there  is  evidence  that  there  were  many  health¬ 
giving  forces  lying  about,  some  showing  themselves,  some 
still  latent,  ready  to  be  applied  to  the  conservation  of  the 
old  ecclesiastical  order,  if  a  man  of  genius  should  come  for¬ 
ward  with  the  instrument  by  which  they  could  be  put  to 
use.  The  purpose  of  this  book  has  been  to  show  how  such 
a  man  did  come  forward. 

And  I  shall  adduce  one  more  indication  of  the  spiritual 
atmosphere  in  Rome  which,  however  alien  to  any  thoughts 
or  feelings  that  we  find  in  Loyola  and  his  companions,  shows 
how  the  nobler  minds  brooded,  though  not  necessarily  in  an 
ecclesiastical  fashion,  over  spiritual  welfare.  I  refer  to 
Vittoria  Colonna  and  to  Michelangelo.  She — “di  spirt o 
generoso ,  di  natura  magnanima,  d’ingegno  pellegrino,  di 
virtu  sola,  di  creanza  nobile  e  di  vita  buona”  as  a  contem¬ 
porary  truly  says,  had  come  under  the  influence  of  Juan 
Valdes,  and  was  accused  of  heretical  views,  as  were  other 
pious  souls,  such  as  Cardinal  Contarini — who  constitutes 
one  of  the  links  between  that  intellectual  group  and  Ignatius 
Loyola — but  in  fact,  she  went  no  further  than  a  region  of 
poetry  and  neo-Platonism,  where  aspiration  and  upward 
yearning  may  have  been  a  little  careless  of  classified  dogmas. 

Se  per  salir  ad  alta  e  vera  luce 

Dai  bassi,  ombrosi  e  falsi  sentier  nostri, 

E  ver  che  Amor  la  strada  erta  dimostri — 

(“Of  a  verity,  Love  shows  the  steep  path  up  to  the  true 
light,  out  from  our  low,  o’ershadowed,  wayward  ways.”) 

Se  le  dolcezze,  che  dal  vivo  fonte 
Divino  stillan  dentro  un  gentil  core, 


304 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Apparissero  al  mondo  ancor  di  fuore, 

Con  bella  pace  in  puro  amor  congionte; 

Forse  sarebbon  piu  palesi  e  conte 
Le  cagion  da  sdegnar  ricchezza  e  onore: 

Onde  i  piu  saggi,  lieti,  ebbri  d’amore, 

Andrebbon  con  la  croce  all’  erto  monte. 

(“If  the  sweetness  that  flows  into  the  humble  heart  from 
the  living  fountain  of  God,  should  show  itself  visible  to  the 
world,  attended  by  beauteous  peace  and  pure  love ;  perhaps 
the  reasons  for  contempt  of  riches  and  honors  would  be 
more  plain  and  clear,  and  those  more  wise  would  go  in  joy, 
and  drunk  with  love,  up  the  steep  hill,  carrying  the  cross.”) 

And  Michelangelo  cries  out: 

Mettimi  in  odio  quanto  ’1  mondo  vale, 

E  quante  sue  bellezze  onoro  e  colo, 

C’anzi  morte  caparri  eterna  vita — 

Make  me  to  hate  all  that  the  world  holds  dear, 

All  things  of  beauty  that  I  love  and  cherish, 

And  gain  eternal  life  instead  of  death. 

Or,  let  me  refer  to  his  sonnet  wherein  he  prays  for  faith : 

De’,  porgi,  Signor  mio,  quella  catena 
Che  seco  annoda  ogni  celeste  dono: 

La  fede  dico,  a  che  mi  stringo  e  sprono. 

0  God,  reach  down  that  chain, 

To  which  is  knotted  every  heavenly  gift, 

True  faith,  I  mean,  toward  which  I  strive  and  strain. 

And  it  was  at  this  time,  I  think,  that  Palestrina  was  chapel 
master  in  Santa  Maria  Maggiore. 

There  are,  I  presume,  all  the  time  all  sorts  of  forces,  phys¬ 
ical,  chemical,  vital,  ethical,  social  and,  perhaps,  spiritual, 
lying  idle,  so  far  as  mankind  is  concerned,  about  us;  it  is  the 
task  of  genius  to  discover  and  put  some,  at  least,  of  those 
forces  to  use.  Ignatius  was  such  a  genius. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


IGNATIUS  IN  ROME 

Such  as  I  have  described  in  earlier  chapters  were,  in  a 
way,  the  occupations  of  the  earliest  Fathers.  Before 
Ignatius  died  the  Society  had  houses  and  colleges,  either 
established  or  in  the  making,  all  over  Catholic  Europe; 
kings  and  princes  were  its  friends  and  patrons;  the  Popes 
were  its  supporters  and  protectors,  even  the  dreaded  Caraffa, 
Paul  IV,  behaved  towards  the  Society  in  so  fatherly  a 
fashion  that  Ignatius  was  able  to  say, — with  a  little  exag¬ 
geration — that  no  Pope  had  done  more  for  it  than  he;  the 
orthodox  bishops  of  Europe  assembled  at  the  Council  of 
Trent,  had  learned  to  respect  it.  In  fact,  the  reputation  of 
the  Society  had  suddenly  grown  so  great  that  there  was 
danger  lest  the  Fathers  should  lose  their  heads.  Ignatius 
had  to  caution  one  of  them,  pretty  sharply,  not  to  assume 
a  tone  of  authority  towards  Duke  Cosimo  of  Florence,  be¬ 
cause  already  an  unfriendly  report  was  going  about  Rome, — 
“Que  queremos  governar  todo  el  mundo”  (“That  we  want  to 
govern  the  whole  world”) ;  and  years  before  he  died,  he  said, 
to  one  of  his  disciples:  “If  you  live  ten  years  more,  you 
shall  see  great  things.”  All  this  accomplishment,  big  with 
promise  of  greater  achievements  still,  could  not  have  been 
wrought  without  the  talents,  the  zeal  and  the  tireless  energy 
of  los  primer  os  padres;  and  they  were  well  seconded  by  their 
younger  associates,  Canisius,  Araoz,  Francisco  de  la  Strada, 
Domenech,  Miron,  Miguel  de  Torres,  Nadal,  Polanco,  Riba- 
deneira  and  others.  Nevertheless,  making  full  allowance 
for  what  these  men  did,  the  credit  and  the  glory  must  be 
awarded  to  Ignatius.  His  was  the  imperial  gift,  as  Cardinal 
Newman  calls  it,  “to  frame,  to  organize  and  to  consolidate.” 

From  the  time  he  was  elected  General  until  his  death, 
Ignatius,  as  I  have  said,  virtually  never  left  Rome  at  all. 

305 


306 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


His  labors  may  be  divided  into  two  main  categories:  As 
director  of  the  Jesuit  house  in  Rome,  and  of  various  chari¬ 
table  institutions  there,  he  had  much  to  do  in  the  city  itself ; 
and,  as  executive  head  of  a  rapidly  spreading  order,  he  was 
concerned  with  matters  all  over  the  world.  At  first  he  de¬ 
voted  the  greater  part  of  his  attention  to  local  duties,  but  as 
years  went  by  he  must  have  found  it  necessary  to  give  more 
and  more  time  to  the  superintendence  of  affairs  away  from 
home.  I  shall,  however,  leave  chronology  to  one  side,  and 
say  something  of  his  various  occupations  in  the  sequence 
that  shall  seem  most  convenient. 

First  and  foremost  in  importance  comes  his  correspond¬ 
ence:  letters  from  Jesuit  Fathers,  wherever  they  were,  and 
his  replies  of  instruction,  suggestion  and  encouragement; 
letters  from  persons  in  high  place  outside  the  Society,  both 
ecclesiastical  and  secular,  and  his  written  in  answer  ;  letters 
from  persons  of  various  sorts,  with  whom  the  Society,  or  he 
personally,  had  some  connection;  letters  from  relations,  old 
friends,  acquaintances  and  such.  The  table  of  contents  for 
the  volumes  of  his  letters  show  how  far  and  wide,  even  in 
these  first  years,  the  Society  had  stretched  its  branches,  how 
deep  it  had  pushed  its  roots.  His  letters  to  Popes,  kings, 
princes  and  cardinals  are  always  marked  by  extreme  defer¬ 
ence  ;  they  reveal  his  policy  of  working  with  established  au¬ 
thority,  never  against  it.  In  matters  of  principle,  he  was 
very  firm;  but,  if  principles  were  not  involved,  he  always 
endeavored  to  win  the  good  will  and  to  conform  to  the 
wishes  of  the  great.  He  knew  that  it  lay  with  them  to  favor 
or  obstruct  the  work  of  the  Society.  For  instance,  King 
John  III  wished  to  establish  the  Inquisition  in  Portugal, 
and  at  his  request,  Ignatius  made  every  effort  to  induce  the 
Apostolic  See  to  grant  the  necessary  charter;  but  when  the 
King  wished  members  of  the  Society  to  assume  the  office  of 
inquisitors,  he  refused,  for  he  had  made  it  a  principle  for 
the  Society  not  to  accept  any  outside  dignities.  For  this 
same  reason,  Jay,  Bobadilla  and  Canisius  refused  bishoprics, 
and  Lainez  and  Borgia  asked  to  be  excused  from  accepting 
a  cardinal’s  hat.  Ignatius  was  fearful  lest  the  mere  possi¬ 
bility  of  such  prizes  might  tempt  ambitious  men  to  join  the 


IGNATIUS  IN  ROME 


307 


Society,  or  hurt  the  humility  of  those  within;  besides,  he 
wished  the  members  all  absolutely  free  to  be  sent  at  a  mo¬ 
ment’s  notice,  near  or  far,  to  heretics  or  heathen:  “We, 
(he  said)  are  the  light  horse  of  the  Church.”  The  Popes 
hesitated  before  accepting  this  principle,  and  Marcellus  II, 
while  still  a  cardinal,  argued  the  point  with  Dr.  Olave,  S.  J. 
They  could  not  agree,  until  the  Jesuit  said:  “Well,  it’s 
enough  for  us  that  Father  Ignatius  thinks  so,”  and  the 
Cardinal  answered:  “I  surrender;  reason  seems  to  be  on 
my  side,  but  the  authority  of  Father  Ignatius  outweighs 
reason.” 

The  great  bulk  of  Loyola’s  correspondence  was  with  the 
Jesuit  Fathers  scattered  about  Italy  or  in  foreign  parts. 
This  correspondence  was  a  matter  of  great  solicitude;  we 
find  him  frequently  admonishing  one  or  another  of  them,  as 
to  what  he  requires.  The  rules  that  he  laid  down  are  ex¬ 
plicit.  The  superiors  of  colleges,  houses  or  missions  must 
write  regularly.  Those  in  India,  once  a  year — the  post 
would  not  permit  more  frequent  letters — those  in  Italy, 
once  a  week,  and  those  elsewhere  in  Europe  once  a  month. 
These  letters  must  contain  full  information  on  all  matters 
that  concern  the  Society;  the  doings  of  the  Superior  and 
those  under  him,  as  to  preaching,  teaching,  giving  the 
Spiritual.  Exercises,  hearing  confessions,  etc.,  news  as  to 
health,  as  to  the  welcome  given  them,  the  attitude  of  princes 
and  bishops,  the  character  and  talents  of  new  recruits,  the 
prosperity  of  the  mission,  the  outlook  for  the  future,  and 
all  such  matters.  Every  letter  must  be  carefully  written, 
twice  over  if  need  be,  in  order  to  be  clear  and  free  from 
irrelevant  details,  and  contain  only  such  matters  as  could 
be  shown  with  advantage  to  outsiders,  cosas  de  edificacion. 
If  the  writer  wished  to  communicate  matters  that  might  not 
redound  to  the  credit  of  the  Society,  or  might  be  misinter¬ 
preted  or  misunderstood,  or  for  one  reason  or  another  had 
better  be  reserved  for  Loyola’s  private  ear,  he  was  to  write 
them  privily  on  a  separate  sheet;  and  also,  as  the  rules  say: 

When  there  is  anything  surpassingly  praiseworthy,  so  that 
you  would  not  like  to  say  it  of  yourselves,  if  there  should  be 


308 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


a  friend  at  hand  who  could  write  of  it,  well  and  good;  and, 
if  not,  put  it  either  in  the  supplementary  letter,  or  in  the 
principal  letter  in  such  fashion  that  it  shall  arouse  no  sus¬ 
picion  of  vanity,  even  in  the  somewhat  suspicious-minded. 

Besides  these  letters,  the  Fathers  Superior  away  from 
home  were  to  write  three  times  a  year, — Litterce  quadrimes- 
tres — on  the  first  days  of  January,  May  and  September,  giv¬ 
ing  a  summary  of  the  cosas  de  edification  that  had  taken 
place  during  the  preceding  four  months. 

Ignatius  set  great  store  by  these  rules,  for  it  was  his  prac¬ 
tice  to  send  copies  of  the  letters  that  contained  good  news 
to  members  of  the  Roman  Curia  and  to  the  missionary 
Fathers  at  their  various  stations,  who  were  charged  to  show 
them  to  people  of  importance,  in  order  that  all  the  world 
should  learn  of  what  the  Society  of  Jesus  was  accomplishing. 
Xavier’s  letters  were  of  the  very  greatest  service  to  the 
Society. 

There  was  frequent  business  with  various  cardinals,  often 
with  the  Pope  himself,  with  bishops,  with  the  ambassadors 
from  Spain  and  Portugal,  with  distinguished  personages, 
such  as  the  Lady  Margaret,  the  Emperor’s  daughter,  or 
other  visitors  in  Rome,  sometimes  concerning  the  interests 
of  the  Society,  sometimes  concerning  other  things.  All  this 
I  pass  over  and  come  at  once  to  the  ordinary  routine.  In 
the  first  place  the  usual  religious  means  for  stirring  men  to 
a  sense  of  spiritual  things  were  zealously  employed.  There 
was  preaching,  both  in  the  Society’s  own  churches,  Santa 
Maria  de  la  Strada,  Sant ’  Andrea  de  la  Fracte ,  and  also  in 
others,  and  there  was  hearing  confession,  giving  Spiritual 
Exercises,  and  teaching.  Ignatius  himself  used  to  teach. 
An  anecdote  told  by  his  secretary,  Ribadeneira,  bears  wit¬ 
ness  to  his  zeal: 

A  great  many  people  came  to  listen  to  Father  Ignatius, 
learned  and  ignorant,  men  and  women,  all  sorts  of  people. 
In  these  lessons  of  his,  two  particular  virtues  displayed 
themselves,  humility  and  holiness.  He  was  far  from  elo- 


IGNATIUS  IN  ROME 


309 


quent,  he  had  learning  but  no  skill  in  speaking;  and,  worse 
than  that,  he  did  not  know  the  Italian  language  very  well. 
So,  although  I  was  a  mere  boy,  I  told  this  holy  old  man  that 
there  were  many  mistakes  in  what  he  said,  much  to  be  cor¬ 
rected,  for  he  mixed  Spanish  in  with  his  Italian.  “Well,”  he 
said,  “please  note  and  tell  me  when  it  happens.”  So,  the 
next  day  I  set  out  to  take  careful  notes  of  his  foreign  words, 
mispronunciations,  and  so  forth.  I  found,  however,  that  it 
was  not  this  word  or  that  which  had  to  be  altered,  but  the 
whole  discourse;  and  out  of  sheer  fatigue  and  despair  I 
gave  up  trying  to  make  the  corrections,  and  told  him  how  it 
was.  Father  Ignatius  said:  “Peter,  for  the  Lord’s  sake, 
what  am  I  to  do?” 

But  in  reality  he  had  much  of  the  orator’s  art,  at  least  he 
had  the  gift  of  persuasion.  His  conviction  and  his  extraor¬ 
dinary  fervor  stirred  his  hearers  to  the  depths.  Even  when 
he  mixed  up  Spanish  and  Italian,  the  divine  love  that  radi¬ 
ated  from  his  countenance  touched  their  hearts.  Ribade- 
neira  says  that  his  sermons  were  devoid  of  all  the  artifices 
of  eloquence,  but  full  of  force  and  the  spirit  of  God,  that 
they  were  like  St.  Paul’s  who  says,  “And  my  speech  and  my 
preaching  was  not  with  enticing  words  of  man’s  wisdom,  but 
in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  of  power.”  And  Gon¬ 
zalez  adds  that  Ignatius  used  to  say,  “Love  God  with  all 
your  might  and  all  your  soul,”  and  say  it  with  such  energy 
and  fervor  of  spirit  that  his  face  seemed  on  fire  with  flames 
of  love,  and  that  his  hearers  hurried  away  with  groans  and 
tears  to  confess  their  sins. 

In  addition  to  these  evangelical  labors  he  undertook  cer¬ 
tain  specific  charities.  He  founded  a  house  for  orphan 
boys  and  another  for  orphan  girls,  and  also  the  nunnery  of 
Saint  Catherine  for  respectable  girls,  who  lived  in  bad  sur¬ 
roundings  or  had  nobody  to  look  after  them.  He  also 
established  a  place  of  refuge  for  repentant  prostitutes, 
known  as  Saint  Martha’s  Home,  and  organized  a  society  of 
charitable  people  under  the  name  of  “Our  Lady  of  Com - 
; passion ”  to  take  care  of  them.  Ribadeneira  says: 


310 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


I  remember  how,  at  the  time  when  the  Home  of  St. 
Martha  was  founded,  notorious  harlots  forsook  their  shame¬ 
ful  quest  and  with  tears  betook  themselves  to  the  quest  of 
salvation,  and  how  Father  Ignatius  used  to  accompany  them 
through  the  public  streets,  not  in  a  group,  but  first  one  and 
then  another;  it  was  a  very  beautiful  sight  to  see  this  holy 
man,  like  an  attendant  going  on  before,  leading  a  sinful 
handsome  woman,  in  order  that  he  might  save  her  from 
the  jaws  of  cruelest  tyranny,  and  place  her  in  the  hands  of 
Christ. 

He  also  took  advantage  of  a  rich  gift  from  Francis  Borgia 
to  found  the  Collegio  Romano,  an  institution  of  higher 
education  for  teaching  various  branches  of  philosophy, 
casuistry,  and  also  theology;  he  took  charge  of  the  German 
College,  chartered  by  Paul  III,  a  seminary  where  young 
Germans  should  be  trained  for  the  priesthood,  with  the  idea 
of  returning  to  Germany,  as  missionaries,  to  serve  the  or¬ 
thodox  faith;  and  he  devised  a  system  of  instruction  to  be 
used  there. 

The  way  that  Ignatius  set  about  these  charitable  founda¬ 
tions  was  this.  He  imparted  his  general  idea  to  two  or 
three  friends  of  character  and  sagacity;  then,  having  ob¬ 
tained  their  approval,  he  laid  the  plan,  in  more  elaborate 
form,  before  men  of  opulent  means,  and  after  he  had  col¬ 
lected  the  necessary  funds,  and  had  set  the  project  on  its 
feet  and  going,  he  would  draw  up  rules  for  its  government, 
request  some  Cardinal  to  be  its  patron,  and  then  induce 
well-disposed  persons  to  become  a  board  of  trustees  and 
take  over  the  work.  And  then,  that  matter  out  of  the  way, 
he  would  turn  to  something  new. 

He  also  busied  himself  with  great  zeal  in  the  conversion 
of  Jews,  of  whom  there  were  large  numbers,  living  in  the 
Ghetto  across  the  Tiber,  and  founded  a  house  for  catechu¬ 
mens.  He  was  not  only  quite  free  from  the  popular  preju¬ 
dice  against  the  Jewish  race,  but  even  asserted  that  it  was  a 
great  privilege  to  be  of  the  same  blood  as  Christ  and  the 
Virgin  Mary.  Once  a  Spanish  gentleman  hearing  him  say 
something  of  the  sort,  crossed  himself  in  horror,  and  ex- 


IGNATIUS  IN  ROME 


311 


claimed  scornfully,  “ A  Jew!"  and  spat  at  the  very  thought. 
Ignatius  said:  “Senor  Pedro  de  (/arate,  let  us  reason  to¬ 
gether/'  and  spoke  so  persuasively  that  before  he  fin¬ 
ished,  Pedro  de  (/arate  wished  that  he  too  had  been  born  a 
Jew.  The  Popes  Julius  III  and  Paul  IV,  with  “great  wis¬ 
dom,"  obliged  all  the  synagogues  in  Italy  to  contribute  to 
the  support  of  this  house  for  catechumens.  Ignatius  also 
persuaded  one  or  the  other  of  them  to  repeal  an  old  law 
which  exacted  that  a  converted  Jew,  in  return  for  the  treas¬ 
ure  of  heaven,  should  forfeit  all  his  earthly  possessions. 
And  so,  as  Ribadeneira  says:  “the  door  to  heaven  was  flung 
open  wide  to  the  Jews." 

One  would  have  supposed  that  such  benevolent  institu¬ 
tions  might  have  been  begun  and  set  going  without  vexa¬ 
tions;  but  quite  the  contrary  came  to  pass.  As  to  St. 
Martha’s  Home,  an  employee  in  the  papal  service,  master  of 
the  posts,  promulgated  the  grossest  slanders,  he  called  it  the 
Jesuits’  seraglio  or  some  such  name.  Ignatius,  as  usual, 
brought  the  matter  into  the  full  light  of  day,  and  laid  a  com¬ 
plaint  before  the  papal  magistrate.  Persons  of  no  less  con¬ 
sequence  than  the  Spanish  Viceroy  of  Sicily  and  his  wife, 
whose  good  offices  the  master  of  the  posts  had  sought,  en¬ 
deavored  to  persuade  Ignatius  to  accept  a  retraction  out  of 
court  and  let  the  matter  drop ;  but  where  the  good  name  of 
the  Society  was  in  question,  Ignatius  was  as  obdurate  as  the 
rock  of  Gibraltar.  The  case  was  called,  the  slanderer  made 
default.  The  Magistrate  investigated  the  accusation,  and 
declared  that,  so  far  from  there  being  any  wrong-doing,  the 
Fathers  deserved  high  praise.  Other  slanders  were  circulated 
by  the  priest  who  had  been  put  at  the  head  of  the  Home  for 
Catechumens.  Here  again  the  Fathers  were  completely 
exonerated  by  a  court  of  competent  jurisdiction.  Still  an¬ 
other  accusation  was  made.  A  Dr.  Ferrer,  a  nephew  of 
Dona  Isabel  Roser,  denounced  Ignatius  as  a  hypocrite  and 
a  thief.  The  trouble  arose  in  this  way.  This  lady,  who 
had  been  so  kind  and  generous  to  Ignatius  in  early  days 
when  he  was  in  Barcelona,  had  come  to  Rome,  partly,  I 
presume,  to  be  near  him  and  under  his  charge,  and  partly 
in  order  to  marry  off  two  young  relations  of  hers.  Ignatius 


312 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


received  her  gratefully,  acted  as  her  spiritual  director,  and 
admitted  her  to  the  vow  of  obedience.  She  stayed  in  Rome 
for  two  years,  and,  out  of  gratitude  for  her  old  kindness, 
one  of  the  Fathers,  Esteban  de  Eguia,  now  an  old  and 
venerable  gentleman,  was  detailed  to  act  as  her  steward,  to 
provide  her  with  food,  apparel,  shoes,  to  sweep  her  room, 
and  so  on.  The  nephew  seems  to  have  thought  that 
Ignatius  was  using  improper  influence  to  get  his  aunt’s 
money.  The  case  was  taken  to  court.  Isabel  Roser  was 
in  tears,  and  the  nephew  formally  admitted  that  what  he 
he  said  was  wholly  untrue.  Warned  by  this  occurrence, 
Ignatius  insisted  upon  releasing  Doha  Isabel  and  two  other 
ladies  from  their  vows  of  obedience,  and  obtained  a  decree 
from  the  Pope  that  in  the  future  the  Fathers  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus  should  not  be  called  upon  to  assume  the  spiritual 
direction  of  any  women. 

The  Church  of  Santa  Maria  della  Strada  stood  where  the 
great  church  of  the  Gesu  now  stands,  a  little  to  the  west  of 
the  Palazzo  di  Venezia,  and  the  house  of  the  Jesuit  Fathers 
was  close  by.  Here  in  1545  there  were  over  thirty  inmates. 
To  give  an  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  life  there,  and  the 
nature  of  the  discipline  of  humility  to  which  all  were  sub¬ 
jected,  I  will  quote  from  the  brief  autobiography  of  Father 
Benedetto  Palmio,  a  young  gentleman  of  breeding  and  edu¬ 
cation,  at  this  time  twenty-three  years  old.  On  his  recep¬ 
tion  in  the  household  he  was  put  to  work  in  the  kitchen. 
He  speaks  of  himself  in  the  third  person: 

EXTRACTS 

FROM  FATHER  BENEDETTO  PALMIO’S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Benedetto  was  used,  following  his  natural  inclination,  to 
make  a  great  ado  over  cleanliness  and  neatness,  more  than 
the  ordinary,  even  to  the  point  of  daintiness;  and  therefore 
he  felt  great  disgust  at  the  dirt  in  the  kitchen  and  dining 
hall.  At  this  time  there  were  two  causes  that  contributed 
largely  to  make  the  house  dirty:  great  scarcity,  and  the 
class  of  novices  that  attended  to  the  household  chores, — for 


IGNATIUS  IN  ROME 


313 


they  took  little  or  no  pains  in  the  matter  of  personal  cleanli¬ 
ness.  The  consequence  was  that  Benedetto  could  not  look 
at  the  horrid,  dirty  places,  where  he  was  at  work,  without 
being  sick  at  his  stomach,  although  he  used  to  rebuke  him¬ 
self  sharply  for  it.  At  last  he  hit  upon  a  plan  for  getting 
over  his  disgust  and  squeamishness.  A  divine  spirit  urged 
him  on,  and  he  at  once  put  the  plan  into  practice.  Under 
the  kitchen  was  a  cellar  filled  with  filth;  down  into  this 
cellar  Benedetto  went,  rolled  in  the  filth,  and  covered  him¬ 
self  with  it  from  head  to  foot,  and  in  this  guise  went  about 
the  house  in  triumphant  joy.  By  this  means  he  overcame 
all  his  fastidious  dislike. 

When  Ignatius  saw  him  all  covered  with  filth,  he  used 
these  words:  “Now  at  last  you  please  me,  Benedetto.” 
For,  although  Ignatius  greatly  loved  the  niceties  of  cleanli¬ 
ness,  nevertheless  he  would  not  put  up  with  much  of  it  in 
novices;  he  would  say  that  where  men  were  advanced  in 
age,  and  wrong  appetites  had  simmered  down,  the  care  of 
cleanliness  was  praiseworthy  and  added  a  grace  to  virtue; 
but  in  young  men,  only  lately  come  forth  out  of  the  nasti¬ 
ness  of  worldly  things,  cleanliness  was  a  matter  of  reproach 
and  had  a  bad  look,  it  offered  a  field  for  the  tares  of  vain 
ostentation  and  tempted  them  from  a  whole-hearted  study 
of  philosophy.  When  he  saw  them  shabbily  dressed  and 
neglectful  of  their  persons,  he  would  say  that  some  good 
angel  was  on  hand  to  destroy  fastidiousness  and  pride  in 
their  hearts. 

Full  of  joy  at  having  overcome  his  disgust,  as  has  just 
been  told,  Benedetto  went  back  to  the  duties  of  the  kitchen, 
and  while  busying  himself  over  them,  took  to  comforting 
himself  with  these  thoughts.  First,  he  kept  pondering  over 
the  words  that  God  addressed  to  the  holy  Apostle,  whom  he 
had  always  studied  religiously,  “Arise  and  go  into  the  city, 
and  there  it  shall  be  told  thee  what  thou  must  do”;  and 
since  he  felt  sure  that  he  had  been  brought  to  the  Company 
by  the  special  favor  of  God’s  providence,  whenever  he  was 
bidden  to  do  anything  at  all,  he  deemed  that  God  was  the 
giver  of  the  order,  and  thought  himself  set  to  do  the  work 
by  God’s  express  admonition;  and  this  thought  filled  his 


314 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


soul  with  a  great  joy.  Secondly,  he  went  over  in  his  mind 
the  words  of  Christ,  “Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one 
of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,”  etc.;  and  therefore,  when¬ 
ever  he  undertook  any  work  for  any  members  of  the  Com¬ 
pany,  he  thought  to  himself  that  it  should  all  be  done  as  if 
directly  to  Christ.  From  his  appreciation  of  this,  so  much 
joy  flowed  over  his  spirit,  that  he  even  shed  tears.  Thirdly, 
he  considered  Martha’s  love  and  her  devout  piety  to  the 
Lord  Christ,  and  thought  within  himself  that  he  ought  to 
minister  to  Christ,  to  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  to  the  Holy 
Apostles,  with  equal  devotion,  solicitude  and  alacrity.  And 
these  thoughts  not  a  little  inflamed  Benedetto’s  heart  to 
undertake  and  do  everything  for  Christ’s  sake. 

By  this  time  Benedetto  had  declared  war  against  his 
carnal  nature,  and  was  putting  all  his  wits  to  complete  the 
conquest.  Nevertheless  he  shrunk  back  violently  from 
shame  and  disgrace,  for  they  are  hateful  to  a  gentleman. 
He  felt  he  must  attack  that  shrinking  with  all  the  vigor  of 
his  soul,  that  he  must  not  ask  for  respect  from  men  of  birth 
and  position  in  the  world,  but,  on  the  contrary,  scorn  and 
contumely.  He  then  assumed  the  dress  and  character  of  a 
beggar,  and  began  to  beg  for  things  that  were  necessary 
for  the  brethren.  He  even  went  for  the  portions  of  bread 
and  wine  supplied  to  our  house  in  Rome  by  some  cardinals 
and  rich  men,  and  carried  them  home.  For  several  months 
he  performed  this  office  with  exquisite  delight,  for  he  knew 
that  the  daily  insults  and  curses  cast  at  him  (as  at  this  time 
our  Society  was  the  butt  and  scorn  of  all  Rome)  were,  in 
truth,  great  embellishments  and  recompenses  from  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Sometimes  he  was  pushed  out  of  palaces,  as  a 
crazy  man,  and  hooted  at.  And  when  he  walked  across  a 
square,  he  was  greeted  with  derision  by  the  boys,  and  also 
(for  they  were  set  on  by  rude  blacksmiths)  with  a  banging 
of  iron  instruments.  All  this  seemed  to  him  light  and 
pleasant  compared  to  the  shameful  insults  and  contumelies 
put  upon  Christ.  Nevertheless,  he  found  the  beginnings  of 
this  apostolic  practice  a  little  bitter;  and  when  he  met  some 
gentlemen,  with  whom  in  his  college  days  he  had  been  on 
terms  of  familiar  friendship,  he  was  overcome  by  shame- 


IGNATIUS  IN  ROME 


315 


facedness,  and  did  not  dare  ask  them  for  alms,  although  he 
made  many  an  effort  to  do  so.  At  last,  very  angry  with 
himself,  to  think  that  respect  in  the  sight  of  the  world  had 
had  more  power  over  him  than  respect  in  the  sight  of  Christ, 
he  cast  aside  all  false  sense  of  shame,  and  in  his  beggar’s 
garb,  went  up  to  one  of  his  old  friends,  with  whom  he  had 
been  on  closest  terms,  and  boldly  made  the  request  that  he 
had  not  dared  ask  before.  When  this  friend  recognized 
Benedetto,  he  could  not  endure  his  unseemly  dress  and  ap¬ 
pearance,  and  upbraided  him,  and  asked  why  he  had  let 
himself  be  brought  to  such  a  condition  of  idiocy.  Bene¬ 
detto  smiled,  and  since  he  was  on  his  way  home,  hurried 
along,  after  giving  his  friend  an  invitation  to  come  to  see 
him. 

The  friend  accepted  and  went  to  the  Jesuits’  house. 
Benedetto  took  him  into  the  garden,  and  a  conversation  of 
this  sort  passed  between  them:  “Well,  Galeazzo,  what  do 
you  think  of  my  foolishness?”  Galeazzo  answered: 
“Palmio,  you  seem  to  me  to  be  a  very  grievous  enemy  both 
to  yourself  and  to  your  reputation.  Why,  when  we  were  at 
Bologna,  who  would  have  entertained  the  slightest  suspicion 
that  your  future  ways  would  turn  out  so  silly?  Weren’t 
there  other  pious  confraternities,  respectable  and  gentle¬ 
manlike,  in  which  you  could  have  taken  up  your  abode,  far 
better  than  here?  What  is  your  opinion  of  this  class  of 
men,  among  whom  you  have  enrolled  yourself?  They  are 
the  offscouring,  the  dung  of  the  city.  If  you  knew  what  is 
said  of  your  Order  in  gentlemen’s  houses,  you  wouldn’t  stay 
in  this  Company  one  hour.”  Benedetto  replied:  “How 
deceived  you  are  in  your  censure!  Is  it  strange  that  men 
of  the  world  should  hate  these  brethren,  when  they  have 
always  been  bitter  against  Christ,  the  Best  and  Greatest, 
and  against  His  disciples  and  followers?  .  .  .  Did  not  Christ 
declare  plainly  to  His  disciples,  “If  ye  were  of  the  world, 
the  world  would  love  its  own,  but  I  have  chosen  you  out  of 
the  world,  therefore  the  world  hates  you”?  .  .  .  And  so  on. 
At  last,  when  Galeazzo  perceived  how  joyful  and  steadfast 
Benedetto  was  as  he  discoursed  on  the  happy  state  of  men  in 
a  religious  order,  and  the  dangerous  life  of  attendance  upon 


316 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


courts,  he  said:  “Blessed  art  thou,  Benedetto,  for  I  see 
that  God  has  been  very  good  to  thee.”  .  .  . 

I  will  further  illustrate  the  life  in  the  house  of  the  So¬ 
ciety  under  Loyola's  management,  by  another  extract  from 
this  same  diary: 

It  happened  one  day  that  a  certain  Spanish  woman, 
named  Catherine,  pretty  well  on  in  years  and  aflame  with 
piety,  noticed  that  the  door  of  the  house  was  open,  and, 
going  into  the  kitchen  and  on  into  the  dining-room,  came 
upon  Father  Miona,  who  was  eating  his  dinner;  she  sat 
down  beside  him  and  talked  a  long  time  very  intimately. 
On  that  day  Benedetto  (now  in  an  office  of  greater  responsi¬ 
bility)  had  permitted  the  door-keeper  to  make  the  round  of 
the  seven  churches;  and  the  brother  whom  Benedetto  had 
put  in  the  door-keeper’s  place,  had  gone  off  for  some  reason 
and  got  back  too  late,  as  he  acknowledged,  so  it  was  his  fault 
that  the  door  stood  open  to  the  woman.  Benedetto  at  that 
moment  was  busy  about  some  matters  upstairs.  Mean¬ 
while,  by  chance,  Ignatius  had  gone  downstairs  ...  to  the 
little  court  which  was  opposite  the  door,  and  was  walking 
about  there.  Benedetto  also  went  downstairs,  and  going 
into  the  dining-room,  perceived  the  woman,  and  was 
amazed,  but  said  nothing  because  he  saw  that  she  was  talk¬ 
ing  to  Father  Miona,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  house. 
Going  out  of  the  room  he  walked  toward  Ignatius,  who  was 
pacing  up  and  down;  for  Benedetto  had  the  idea  that  the 
woman  had  been  admitted  into  the  house  by  Ignatius’  per¬ 
mission.  But  Ignatius,  quite  put  out,  turned  his  back  on 
him  and  went  to  his  room;  and  Benedetto,  who  would  not 
say  a  word  to  defend  himself,  stayed  downstairs.  In  a 
short  time  Ignatius  called  Miona  to  him  and  gave  orders 
that  Benedetto  and  Giovanni  Paolo,  the  door-keeper  who 
had  gone  to  the  seven  churches,  and  the  brother  who  had 
been  put  in  his  place  for  the  day,  and  Antonio  Rion,  who 
was  cook,  should  flagellate  themselves.  Miona  told  Bene¬ 
detto  what  orders  he  had  received  from  Ignatius,  and  com¬ 
forted  him  saying:  “My  son,  be  patient,  you  have  done  no 


IGNATIUS  IN  ROME 


317 


wrong,  but  Father  Ignatius  lays  these  commands  in  order  to 
prove  you.”  Benedetto  immediately  called  the  others 
together,  told  them  of  the  punishment  Ignatius  had  ap¬ 
pointed  ;  and  they  went  to  the  flagellating  room.  A  flagel¬ 
lation  was  supposed  to  last  while  the  psalm  Miserere  was 
being  chanted,  but  because  Giovanni  Paolo,  though  a  most 
religious  brother,  got  the  giggles,  the  time  of  flagellation 
was  stretched  out  nearly  to  a  full  hour.  The  trouble  was 
that  Antonio  Rion  had  set  Giovanni  Paolo  off  laughing  be¬ 
cause  in  flagellating  himself  he  had  used  keys  instead  of 
thongs.  Benedetto  rebuked  Giovanni  Paolo  because  the 
penitence  should  be  undergone  with  great  humility  of  mind ; 
however,  while  they  were  struggling  to  recite  the  psalm 
without  laughter,  almost  an  hour  was  consumed. 

Ignatius  was  very  fond  of  that  kind  of  penitence,  where 
there  was  no  real  wrongdoing,  and  imposed  it  freely,  for  he 
knew  that  it  developed  strength  in  the  brethren  to  enable 
them  to  overcome  the  natural  stubbornness  of  human  na¬ 
ture.  After  Ignatius  had  been  told  of  this  flagellation,  while 
walking  in  the  garden,  he  saw  Benedetto  and  called  him,  and 
asked  him  how  an  ailment  with  which  he  was  afflicted  was 
getting  on,  and  in  the  sweetest  paternal  words  expressed  his 
sympathy,  as  he  was  wont  to  do  when  others  were  ill  or  in 
trouble. 

While  I  am  about  it,  I  will  give  some  further  details  of 
the  life  in  the  Roman  community.  Adjoining  the  house 
was  a  garden,  and  the  Society  also  owned  a  vineyard  on  the 
Aventine,  with  a  sort  of  lodge  in  it,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
students  in  the  Collegio  Romano;  and,  as  I  understand  it, 
the  novices  from  the  Jesuit  house  also  had  the  privilege  of 
resorting  to  this  recreation  ground.  The  young  men  played 
at  quoits,  and  also  at  piastrelle,  a  game  I  should  judge  half¬ 
way  between  quoits  and  pitch-penny,  which  Ignatius  had 
seen  played  at  the  Sorbonne;  he  designed  a  wax  model  for 
the  piastrella  himself.  No  other  sport  of  any  kind  was 
allowed. 

One  day  Dr.  Olave,  the  rector  of  the  College,  then  a  man 
over  forty  and  of  distinguished  reputation,  young  Riba- 


318 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


deneira,  and  some  others,  were  tossing  oranges  about  from 
one  to  another;  part  of  the  game  being  that  whoever  muffed 
was  to  say  an  Ave  Maria.  Ignatius  caught  them  at  it  and 
imposed  a  good  stiff  penance.  On  another  occasion  he 
found  out  that  some  youngsters,  recovering  from  sickness 
and  therefore  permitted  to  walk  in  the  garden,  were  playing 
ball;  he  had  all  the  balls  brought  to  him  and  thrown  into 
the  fire.  As  Father  Gonzalez  says:  “He  stopped  up  the 
chinks  by  which  distraction  might  sneak  in.”  For  this  pur¬ 
pose  he  drew  up  a  set  of  rules,  that  he  intended  should  be  a 
precedent  for  all  Jesuit  recreation  grounds  in  the  future: 


RULES 

No  one  shall  go  to  the  vineyard  without  permission  of  the 
Rector  or  of  his  deputy. 

No  one  shall  eat  or  touch  grapes  or  other  fruit  without 
permission. 

No  one  shall  eat  more  grapes  or  fruit  than  he  is  allowed, 
in  order  to  prevent  sickness  from  any  excess. 

No  one  shall  leave  his  clothes  about  the  vineyard,  but  in 
the  prescribed  place. 

No  one  shall  go  into  the  kitchen  without  permission  from 
the  cook,  or  some  one  in  the  cook’s  place. 

No  games  shall  be  played  in  the  vineyard  except 
piastrelle,  and  singing. 

Neither  the  players,  nor  any  one  else,  shall  lean  against 
the  espaliers,  nor  the  trellises,  nor  get  up  on  them. 

No  one  shall  break  twigs  from  the  trees  or  vines,  or  make 
marks  on  them. 

No  one  shall  play  piastrelle  on  the  little  paths  that  run 
across  the  width  of  the  vineyard. 

The  Rector  shall  appoint  a  monitor,  who  shall  give  out 
the  piastrelle  whenever  the  young  men  go  to  the  vineyard ; 
and  when  the  game  is  over,  he  shall  count  them  and  put 
them  back  in  the  closet  appropriated  for  that  purpose. 

Every  player  shall  be  careful  to  return  the  piastrella  he 
has  played  with,  at  the  gate  of  the  house,  and  hand  it  to  the 


IGNATIUS  IN  ROME  319 

monitor.  No  one  shall  make  lines  or  other  marks  on  the 
walls  of  the  house  or  the  rooms,  either  indoors  or  out. 

No  one  shall  throw  anything  into  the  well. 

I  quote  these  minute  regulations  because  they  indicate 
the  extreme  care  with  which  Ignatius  arranged  details.  He 
builded  like  the  old  Roman  builders.  His  conception  of  the 
Jesuits’  life  was  one  of  law.  Liberty  to  him  was  a  euphe¬ 
mism  for  license.  His  mind  contemplated  a  definite  idea 
of  the  perfect  soldier  of  the  Church,  and  he  put  his  whole 
practical  sagacity  into  the  task  of  moulding  every  novice 
enlisted  in  the  Company  of  Jesus,  according  to  that  pattern, 
so  far  as  their  several  qualities  and  capacities  would  allow. 
Here,  too,  as  perhaps  with  all  great  religious  organizers, 
there  was  an  element  of  personal  ambition ;  Ignatius  wished 
for  good  tools  with  which  to  do  the  work  he  hoped  to  ac¬ 
complish.  Few  men,  if  any,  can  see  the  will  of  God  as  other 
than,  in  some  particular  at  least,  coincident  with  their  own 
wills.  Luther  saw  it  so ;  Calvin,  too ;  and  Loyola  as  well. 

The  routine  in  the  house  was  regulated  with  equal  detail; 
the  various  officers  had  their  respective  duties,  the  superior, 
the  minister,  the  subminister,  the  procurator,  the  gardener, 
the  cook,  the  door-keeper,  and  so  forth.  Seven  hours  were 
allotted  to  sleep,  then  the  “waker-up”  knocked  on  the  bed¬ 
room  doors;  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later  it  was  his  duty  to 
enter  the  bedroom,  and  if  he  found  anyone  still  in  bed,  to 
pull  the  mattress  half  off  the  bed.  Bells  were  rung  for 
prayers  and  meals.  At  dinner  three  books  were  read  aloud, 
the  Bible,  the  life  of  a  saint,  and  some  treatise  on  contempt 
of  this  world.  In  the  Refectory,  a  distinction  in  the  food 
was  made  between  Loyola’s  table,  where  los  primeros  padres 
and  guests  sat,  and  the  other  tables : 

His  table  [Benedetto  Palmio  says]  was  always  resplend¬ 
ent  with  parsimony  and  frugality,  but  it  had  nevertheless 
a  savor  of  gentle  usages.  There  were  two  or  three  brothers 
to  wait  upon  it,  more  especially  when  outsiders  were  invited 
to  dinner.  The  wine  glasses  were  served  with  elegance;  it 
could  not  have  been  better  done,  or  more  attractively,  in  a 
palace. 


320 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


And  Ignatius  was  very  particular  about  manners  at  table ; 
rustic  or  untrained  actions  were  condemned  as  “inurbane.” 
Beds  must  be  made  before  sunrise,  and  rooms  swept  every 
day.  But  I  have  said  enough  on  this  subject;  a  full  account 
of  all  the  prescribed  routine  would  be  out  of  all  proportion 
to  its  importance.  Ignatius,  himself,  at  least  in  his  latter 
years,  on  getting  up,  would  meditate  for  an  hour;  then  he 
said  mass.  He  then  attended  to  whatever  there  was  to  do. 
In  transacting  business  his  way  was  to  reflect  before  decid¬ 
ing,  to  pray  for  enlightenment,  and  never  to  reach  a  conclu¬ 
sion  without  consulting  the  Fathers  best  informed  upon  the 
matter  in  hand,  and  then  he  did  the  work  himself  or  dele¬ 
gated  it  to  another  with  general  instructions.  If  he  had 
business  abroad  he  always  took  a  companion  with  him ;  if  he 
stayed  at  home  he  received  members  of  the  household  or 
visitors.  After  dinner  he  used  to  talk  on  edifying  topics, 
and  then  attended  to  details  of  his  correspondence  or  signed 
letters.  After  supper  he  arranged  matters  for  the  following 
day,  talked  to  his  secretary,  walked  up  and  down  the  room 
with  a  stick,  for  with  age  his  wounded  leg  limped  a  little, 
and  closed  the  day  by  a  complete  surrender  to  holy  thoughts. 
He  allowed  but  four  hours  for  sleep.  He  was  very  fond  of 
music;  when  he  felt  ill  or  had  no  appetite,  his  best  tonic 
was  to  listen  to  a  hymn  sung  by  one  of  the  Fathers,  or  to 
hear  Father  Andre  Desfreux  play  upon  the  harp.  But 
these  pleasures  he  regarded  as  self-indulgence,  and  hardly 
ever  accepted. 


CHAPTER  XXX 


HIS  CHARACTER 

Now  that  I  have  recounted  the  work  of  this  remarkable 
man,  I  shall  try  to  describe  some  of  the  mental  and  moral 
qualities  that  enabled  him  to  accomplish  it.  Up  to  twenty- 
six  he  had  been  an  ordinary  young  man.  To  be  sure  there 
is  little  that  we  know  of  his  youth,  but  not  a  word  of  it 
suggests  character  or  talents  out  of  the  ordinary;  during 
that  first  stage  of  life,  where  men,  not  destined  to  accom¬ 
plish  a  twentieth  part  of  what  he  did,  are  wont  to  wear 
promises  on  their  sleeves  and  fill  their  friends  with  hope, 
Ignatius  leaves  us  in  doubt  if  there  be  one  talent  wrapped 
in  his  napkin.  His  conversion  was  remarkable,  but  not  like 
that  of  Saul  of  Tarsus,  which  came  with  a  blinding  light,  nor 
that  of  St.  Augustine  who  heard  a  voice,  but  more  like  those 
of  unknown  or  little  distinguished  persons  such  as  Harold 
Begbie  tells  of  in  his  Twice  Born  Men.  And,  remarkable  as 
his  conversion  was,  it  would  not,  of  itself,  lead  us  to  expect 
a  Roman  strength  of  purpose,  much  less  a  rare  genius  for 
practical  affairs  of  a  kind  that  nature  does  not  bestow  once 
in  a  hundred  years.  There  is  no  other  record  of  such  genius 
for  statesmanship  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  since 
Hildebrand  or  Innocent  III,  and  if  they  had  a  wider  vision 
and  a  more  intellectual  outlook,  I  doubt  if  they  had  greater 
tenacity  of  purpose  or  a  deeper  insight  into  human  nature. 

In  the  first  place  this  little  man,  with  broad,  bald,  un¬ 
wrinkled  brow  and  deep  set,  deep  seeing,  eyes,  grave  aspect, 
and  distinction  of  carriage,  possessed  great  character;  by 
which  I  mean  steadfastness,  patience,  endurance,  energy, 
courage,  determination.  He  had,  also,  the  quality  of  arous¬ 
ing  confidence;  something  about  him  asserted  that  his  side 
would  win  the  victory.  Ribadeneira  says,  “As  soon  as  the 
Blessed  Father  had  set  his  hand  to  anything,  its  success 

321 


322 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


seemed  already  assured.”  And  more,  much  more  than  that, 
he  was  in  their  eyes  a  holy  man.  One  of  the  household, 
Andre  Desfreux,  used  to  say  that  somehow  the  grace  of 
God  seemed  to  have  been  born  in  Father  Ignatius  at  birth, 
as  a  part  of  him,  for  all  inordinate  and  sinful  affections  had 
been  so  dominated  and  suppressed,  and  virtuous  feelings  so 
firmly  rooted  in  righteousness,  that  all  of  them  together,  af¬ 
fections  and  feelings,  had  become  ministers  to  holiness,  and 
ascended  up  from  him  to  God. 

By  nature  Ignatius  was  of  a  choleric  disposition,  but  he 
had  learned  to  master  it  so  absolutely,  that  physicians,  who 
did  not  know  this,  set  down  his  temperament  in  their  diag¬ 
nosis  as  phlegmatic.  This  does  not  mean  that  he  never 
showed  anger;  on  the  contrary,  though  he  did  not  feel  it,  he 
often  affected  the  appearance  of  it,  for  the  sake  of  discipline. 
Ribadeneira  says: 

Often  and  often  we  have  seen  him,  in  perfect  calmness 
and  with  all  the  sweetness  of  manner  that  can  be  imagined, 
order  some  one  brought  before  him  for  punishment;  and 
when  the  offender  came  into  his  presence,  it  seemed  as  if  he 
was  transformed  and  all  afire;  and  then,  after  he  had  finished 
speaking  and  the  offender  had  gone,  immediately,  without 
the  slightest  interval  of  time,  he  returned  to  his  former 
serenity  and  blitheness  of  countenance,  as  if  nothing  had 
happened.  It  was  clear  that  there  had  been  no  irritation 
whatever  within,  and  that  he  had  made  use  of  that  sudden 
look  as  a  mask,  putting  it  on  and  laying  it  aside  at  will.  .  .  . 

And  though  his  bodily  condition  had  its  ups  and  downs, 
for  his  health  was  inconstant,  nevertheless  his  soul  was  in¬ 
variably  of  an  even  temper.  What  I  mean  [I  am  quoting 
Ribadeneira]  is  that  if  you  wished  to  ask  for  something 
from  Father  Ignatius,  it  made  no  difference  whether  he  was 
on  his  way  from  mass  or  had  had  dinner,  or  whether  he  had 
just  got  out  of  bed,  or  had  been  at  prayer,  whether  he  had 
received  good  news  or  bad,  whether  things  were  quiet,  or 
the  world  all  upside  down.  With  him  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  feeling  his  pulse ,  no  taking  a  reckoning  by  the 
North  Star,  no  steering  by  a  sea  chart,  as  is  the  usual  way 


HIS  CHARACTER  323 

of  dealing  with  men  in  authority,  for  he  was  always  in  a 
state  of  calm  self-mastery. 

And  Father  Gonzalez  says:  “His  dominion  over  himself, 
is  a  thing  to  praise  God  for.” 

During  the  conclave  on  the  death  of  Marcellus  II,  in  1555, 
it  was  known  that  Cardinal  Caraffa  would  in  all  probability 
be  elected  Pope. 

Loyola  sat  by  his  window  waiting  for  news.  When  it 
arrived  a  visible  change  came  over  his  countenance,  and  as 
I  [Father  Gonzalez]  have  heard  since  both  from  him  and 
from  old  Fathers  to  whom  he  told  it,  all  his  bones  shook  in 
his  body.  Without  a  word  he  got  up  and  went  into  the 
chapel  to  pray  and  shortly  came  back  as  cheerful  and  con¬ 
tented  as  if  the  election  had  been  to  his  liking. 

There  can  be  no  question  but  that  his  countenance  was 
often  a  mask;  Gonzalez  confirms  this: 

In  Father  Ignatius  [he  says]  consideration  always  seems 
to  precede  his  smile,  as  well  as  all  his  other  external  mani¬ 
festations  of  feeling;  for  instance,  he  often  shows  an  angry 
face  when  he  feels  no  anger,  or  appears  gay  and  affectionate 
towards  some  one,  when  he  does  not  feel  any  very  great 
affection.  In  short,  as  far  as  those  who  live  with  him  can 
judge,  he  is  so  complete  a  master  of  his  inner  feelings,  that 
he  only  gives  them  play  as  reason  dictates. 

Ignatius  himself  remarked  that  “whoever  measured  his 
affection  by  what  he  showed,  would  be  much  deceived;  and 
the  same  with  regard  to  harshness  or  any  lack  of  affection.” 
Let  me  quote  Lord  Rosebery  again,  who  is  speaking  of 
Cromwell : 

A  great  general  inured  to  tremendous  hazards  has  to  curb 
and  disguise  his  emotions  until  he  almost  loses  the  sensations 
of  nature.  He  has  to  appear  calm  when  uneasy,  imperturb¬ 
able  in  the  face  of  calamity,  confident  when  least  confident, 
so  as  to  inspire  his  officers  and  his  troops;  he  is,  in  fine, 


324 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


ground  by  fortune  into  temper  harder  than  steel.  Little  or 
nothing  of  nature  survives  or  is  possible. 

Three  years  before  his  death  Ignatius  was  able  to  say  that 
he  had  not  called  anyone  a  fool  or  a  blockhead  ( fatuum  vel 
stupidum )  for  thirty  years,  or  used  any  other  insulting 
epithet. 

Ignatius  was  stern  to  himself  and  stern  to  his  followers. 
He  regarded  them  as  soldiers  in  the  army  of  Christ,  and 
enforced  discipline.  Disobedience,  as  in  an  army,  was  the 
worst  fault.  To  novices  he  was  gentle,  but  to  those  who 
had  been  in  the  Society  long  enough  to  understand  the 
rules,  he  showed  great  rigor,  and  if  the  disobedience  were 
serious,  he  expelled  the  offender  without  a  moment’s  delay. 
He  turned  one  backslider  (who  in  a  time  of  penitence 
had  prayed  leave  to  stay  in  the  kitchen  and  be  the  scullion’s 
scullion)  out  of  the  Society  and  out  of  the  house  into  the 
street  on  a  stormy  night.  And  when  a  brother  of  Lainez 
had  left  the  Order  in  great  destitution,  Ignatius  would  give 
him  nothing:  “What!  to  a  deserter,  to  a  runaway  soldier? 
If  I  were  the  owner  of  everything  in  the  wide  world,  I  would 
not  give  a  penny  to  those  who  leave  the  Order,  after  they 
have  once  taken  the  vows.”  And  he  was  overheard  to  say 
to  a  Portuguese  nobleman,  a  member  of  the  Society:  “Don 
Theutonio,  I  will  not  permit  in  my  time  any  breach  of  our 
rules ;  and  much  less  will  I  permit  a  man  of  rank,  and  learn¬ 
ing,  to  step  aside  from  the  straight  path  than  I  would  an 
unlettered  man  of  low  birth”;  and  when  this  nobleman  did 
step  aside,  Ignatius  expelled  him  from  the  Society,  although 
almost  all  the  Fathers,  for  fear  of  scandal,  protested. 

Once  one  of  the  Fathers  was  called  suddenly  to  confess 
a  woman;  he  could  not  find  a  companion  on  the  instant 
and  had  gone  alone,  contrary  to  rule.  He  was  a  man  of  well 
tried  virtues;  of  the  sort  that  no  suspicion,  no  sinister  rumor 
could  come  near.  Nevertheless,  for  the  sake  of  example,  lest 
in  the  course  of  time  the  necessary  strictness  of  the  rule  be 
relaxed,  Ignatius  commanded  him  to  scourge  himself  in  the 
presence  of  eight  priests,  while  they  repeated  psalms  in  turn. 
On  another  occasion,  a  venerable,  elderly  man,  Father  Diego 


HIS  CHARACTER 


325 


Eguia,  spoke  in  terms  of  superlative  praise  about  Ignatius, 
in  the  presence  of  some  people  who  seem  to  have  found 
fault  with  its  extravagance,  or  put  some  misinterpretation 
upon  it ;  when  Ignatius  heard  of  this,  he  bade  Father  Eguia 
scourge  himself  for  the  time  it  took  to  repeat  three  psalms, 
on  three  several  days,  in  the  presence  of  the  persons  who 
had  taken  his  words  in  ill  part,  and  between  each  psalm  to 
say,  “One  must  not  say  things  liable  to  misinterpretation,” 
etc.  And,  again,  Ribadeneira  says: 

Father  Ignatius  and  I  were  strolling  about  together  after 
supper,  and  a  good  many  others  were  walking  about  and 
talking  of  one  thing  or  another  at  a  little  distance  off.  While 
we  two  were  discussing  spiritual  matters,  Father  Ignatius 
paused,  and  stepping  up  to  one  of  the  brothers  said:  “Go, 
see  who  those  are  walking  over  yonder”  (the  spot  was  too 
far  to  be  distinctly  visible  from  where  we  stood).  The 
brother  came  back,  and  said  it  was  one  of  our  priests  talking 
to  a  novice.  Ignatius  called  the  priest  up,  and  asked, 
“What  were  you  talking  about  to  the  novice?”  The  priest 
replied:  “Father,  we  got  on  the  topic  of  humility  and 
mortification,  and  I  was  telling  him  what  I  had  seen  myself, 
or  had  heard,  in  those  respects,  about  Brother  Texeda 
[this  was  a  man  of  high  repute  but  not  a  member  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus]  in  order  to  encourage  the  lad  to  follow 
his  pattern.”  Father  Ignatius  said:  “Are  there  no  ex¬ 
amples  to  be  found  in  the  Society,  that  you  go  seeking  them 
from  outsiders?  Who  gave  you  permission  to  talk  to 
novices,  when  you  have  not  sense  enough?  Go  to  the  min¬ 
ister,  and  bid  him  strike  your  name  off  that  list,  and  don’t 
speak  again  to  a  novice  without  leave  from  me.” 

Ribadeneira  says,  that  Ignatius  wished  to  teach  both  the 
priest,  and  the  others  who  were  standing  by,  that  in  con¬ 
versations  with  a  novice  they  must  avoid  all  topics,  how¬ 
ever  spiritual,  that  did  not  have  to  do  with  his  novitiate, 
lest  he  be  distracted,  and  rendered  irresolute;  meaning,  I 
presume,  that  if  Franciscans  or  Cistercians  were  held  up  as 
examples  of  virtue,  the  novice  might  think  he  would  do  bet- 


326 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


ter  to  join  one  of  those  orders.  But  to  a  reader  today,  not 
under  the  spell  of  Loyola’s  dominant  character,  it  would 
appear  that  a  slight  touch,  not  more  perhaps,  of  paternal 
jealousy  entered  into  that  abrupt  rebuke.  At  another  time 
he  ordered  an  old  Father,  of  marked  piety,  to  scourge  him¬ 
self  during  the  recitation  of  three  psalms,  because  he  had 
said  to  outsiders,  that  one  of  the  Fathers  in  the  house  was 
out  of  his  head  with  a  fever  and  said  things  he  would  not 
have  said  if  he  had  been  in  his  right  mind.  These  instances 
show,  I  think,  that  Ignatius  was  often  very  severe,  but  no¬ 
body  ever  questioned  his  justice;  and  he  never  asked  for  an 
act  of  obedience  from  another  that  he  was  not  ready  to  exact 
of  himself.  Once  he  was  in  his  own  room  alone,  at  prayers, 
when  the  porter  came  knocking  at  the  door,  and  calling  out 
importunately:  ''Father!  Father!”  Ignatius  did  not 

answer.  The  porter  kept  on  knocking.  Finally,  Ignatius 
opened,  and  asked:  ''What  do  you  want?”  The  porter 
said:  "Here  are  letters  for  you  which  the  messenger  says 
have  just  come  from  Azpeitia,  from  your  family,”  and 
handed  him  a  bundle  of  letters.  There  was  a  fire  in  the 
room,  because  of  the  winter’s  cold.  "Throw  them  into  the 
fire,”  Ignatius  said,  and  then  shutting  the  door  on  the  man, 
returned  to  his  prayers. 

I  will  now  speak  of  the  impression  his  tact  made  upon  his 
companions.  Ribadeneira  says : 

He  possessed  a  very  remarkable  gift  for  bringing  a  per¬ 
turbed  conscience  back  to  composure  and  peace ;  even  when 
a  sufferer  found  himself  unable  to  explain  his  difficulty. 
Ignatius  would  set  out  before  him  everything  that  he  felt 
in  his  soul  as  clearly  as  if  he  had  been  told;  then  he  would 
recount  some  similar  experience  that  he  himself  had  passed 
through,  and  the  remedy  that  he  had  discovered  for  a  simi¬ 
lar  infirmity,  and  give  serenity  and  peace,  as  if  his  hand  had 
brushed  aside  a  cloud. 

And  Lainez  used  to  say,  that  "although  Father  Favre  was 
greatly  practised  in  spiritual  matters,  as  we  know  and  as  can 
be  seen  from  his  letters  and  his  book,  nevertheless  the  dif- 


HIS  CHARACTER 


327 


ference  between  him  and  Ignatius  as  to  knowledge  how  to 
direct  a  soul  was  the  difference  between  a  child  and  a  sage.” 
And  Gonzalez  records: 

Father  Ignatius  has  many  skillful  ways  to  learn  a  man’s 
feelings  and  inclinations.  One  is  to  touch  upon  a  world  of 
topics,  counting  on  the  probability  that  the  other  will, 
apropos  of  some  topic,  reveal  what  there  is  in  his  mind. 
[And  adds:]  In  conversation,  Ignatius  is  so  complete  a 
master  of  himself  and  of  the  person  with  whom  he  is  talking 
that  even  Polanco  is  as  inferior  to  him  as  a  little  boy  to  a 
sensible  man. 

He  was  always  just,  and  his  knowledge  of  human  nature 
told  him  when  to  be  harsh  and  when  to  be  tender.  Gon¬ 
zalez  says: 

It  is  remarkable  how  Father  Ignatius  uses  contrary  means 
in  what  seem  to  be  similar  cases.  He  treats  one  man  with 
great  severity,  and  another  with  great  gentleness;  and 
after  the  episode  is  over,  it  is  always  obvious  that,  though 
you  could  not  tell  beforehand,  he  employed  the  right 
remedy.  But  he  is  much  more  inclined  to  love,  and  so 
completely  so,  that  his  whole  behaviour  seems  love.  And 
he  is  so  universally  beloved  by  all,  that  there  is  not  a  man 
in  the  Society  who  does  not  feel  deep  affection  for  him,  and 
does  not  believe  that  Father  Ignatius  is  very  fond  of  him. 

And  he  explains  their  affection  by  Loyola’s  conduct  toward 
them:  first,  his  affability;  second,  the  extreme  care  that  he 
took  of  their  health ;  and,  third,  his  habit  of  giving  disagree¬ 
able  orders  through  his  subordinates  as  if  the  orders  ema¬ 
nated  from  them,  but  of  bestowing  all  favors  and  privileges 
himself.  This  he  did  because  he  felt  it  of  the  utmost  im¬ 
portance  to  the  unity  of  the  Society  and  to  the  spirit  of 
loyalty  within  it,  that  all  the  members  should  be  kindly 
disposed  towards  their  General. 

Of  his  care  of  the  sick,  of  his  concern  with  all  the  details 
of  the  infirmary,  of  their  food,  of  the  doctor’s  attendance, 


328 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


there  can  be  no  doubt.  And  he  wished  all  the  officers  of  the 
Society  to  be  equally  solicitous.  His  theory  was  that  all 
reasonable  care  should  be  taken  of  the  body,  and  if  then 
sickness  came  it  was  to  be  accepted  as  a  divine  visitation 
and  put  to  use  as  a  means  of  spiritual  regeneration.  Of 
this  solicitude  there  is  an  anecdote.  The  rector  of  the  Col- 
legio  Romano ,  Dr.  Olave,  a  stern  man,  not  inclined  to  make 
allowances  for  ill  health,  was  himself  taken  sick;  Ignatius 
charged  Ribadeneira  with  this  message:  “Tell  Dr.  Olave 
from  me  that  we  have  a  good  Master,  who  teaches  us  that 
we  should  have  compassion  upon  others.”  It  was  the  same 
with  other  matters  that  affected  his  household;  Ignatius 
omitted  nothing  to  make  its  inmates  happy.  But  his  kind¬ 
ness  went  much  further  than  this.  Though  he  was  sparing 
of  praise,  he  made  it  a  point  to  say  what  good  he  could  of 
everybody,  and  not  to  speak  of  faults,  except  so  far  as  might 
be  necessary  to  cure  them.  Ribadeneira  says  that  he  does  not 
remember  hearing  him  say  a  single  cross  word  in  disparage¬ 
ment  of  anybody.  His  refraining  from  all  detraction,  or 
evil  speaking,  was  so  perfect  and  wonderful,  that  his  inter¬ 
pretations  to  excuse  other  people’s  failings,  whether  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  Society  or  not,  became  a  sort  of  proverb  among 
them.  Besides  that,  when  he  heard  that  anybody  was 
spoken  ill  of,  he  cast  about  for  something  commendable  in 
him,  and  repeated  it  to  those  who  spoke  against  him.  He 
liked  to  encourage  those  under  him  by  praising  their  good 
qualities.  And  what,  perhaps,  was  more  admirable  still, 
he  would  listen  with  the  greatest  patience  to  the  futile  talk 
of  outsiders,  and  also  to  long  discourses  from  members  of 
the  household  that  might  well  have  been  cut  short,  and 
yet  when  he  joined  in  he  gave  the  conversation  a  turn  to 
spiritual  things,  so  that  it  was  plain  enough  where  his 
thoughts  had  been.  And  he  used  to  talk  to  his  disciples 
about  how  wrong  it  was  to  write  biting  words.  People 
had  often  written  very  harsh  things  to  him,  and  even  though 
he  had  a  good  retort,  he  never  answered  back,  for  he  did 
not  wish  to  return  evil  for  evil.  Ita  maternum  sancti 
Patris  cor  omnem  amovebat  a  se,  non  tantum  actum,  sed 
umbram  ipsam  novercalis  animi  (as  a  Polish  father  said). 


HIS  CHARACTER 


329 


(“In  this  manner  our  saintly  Father’s  maternal  heart  re¬ 
jected  not  only  a  stepmother’s  deeds,  but  even  the  shadow 
of  a  stepmother’s  disposition.”) 

A  further  reason  for  his  hold  upon  his  disciples  is  to  be 
found  in  his  devotion  to  the  Society.  The  disciples  were 
filled — I  speak  of  the  large  majority — with  a  love  of  God 
and  a  desire  to  help  their  neighbors,  but  they  also  had  a 
very  strong  esprit  de  corps,  a  pride  in  the  Society.  The 
General’s  loyalty  to  this  corporate  body,  in  which  they  all 
were  members  for  the  greater  glory  of  God,  inspired  them 
with  enthusiasm.  I  doubt  if  a  day  went  by  without  some 
display  of  his  love  for  the  Society.  He  was  wont  to  say 
to  them  that  this  thought  often  came  to  him:  “Was  it 
possible  that  some  new,  unheard-of  thing,  sad  or  bitter, 
could  happen,  that  would  trouble  him  and  upset  the  com¬ 
posure  of  his  mind?  And  after  he  had  thought  over  every¬ 
thing  he  could  only  think  of  one  thing:  Suppose  the  Pope 
should  dissolve  the  Society,  and  forbid  its  existence!  But 
even  if  that  should  happen,  after  praying  for  a  quarter  of 
an  hour,  he  would  be  able  to  lay  aside  his  trouble  and  re¬ 
turn  to  his  former  serenity.”  And  a  familiar  remark  of 
his  was,  that  if  anything  could  make  him  wish  to  live  long, 
it  would  be  to  make  it  difficult  for  anyone  to  enter  the 
Society.  There  is  more  than  an  abundance  of  evidence  of 
his  passionate  interest  in  every  matter  that  touched  it.  Over 
one  chapter  of  the  Constitution  he  had  prayed  and  deliber¬ 
ated  for  forty  days,  over  another  for  three,  and  he  would 
not  rest  content  with  any  provision  in  it  until  he  felt  that 
it  had  received  God’s  sanction;  even  the  least  important  he 
pondered  over  on  seven  separate  occasions,  with  tears  and 
prayers.  And  besides  this,  the  brothers  felt  pride  and  con¬ 
fidence  in  his  wisdom  and  in  his  holiness.  When  Nadal 
asked  him  how  a  man  might  attain  to  perfection,  he 
answered:  “Master  Nadal,  pray  God  to  give  you  grace  to 
suffer  much  for  His  sake,  for  in  that  good  gift  of  His  many 
others  are  enclosed.”  And  all  knew  that  he  turned  neither 
to  right  nor  left  for  any  human  consideration  when  he 
beheld  the  gleam  of  God’s  glory  leading  him  on. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 


HIS  PIETY 

Loyola’s  especial  distinction,  that  sets  him  far  apart  from 
other  men — I  can  think  of  no  parallel  except  St.  Bernard — 
is  that  he  not  only  possessed  a  genius  for  practical  affairs, 
deep-seated  piety,  talents  for  meditation  and  contempla¬ 
tion,  but  also  belonged  to  the  little  band  called  mystics. 
To  begin  with,  he  was  profoundly  religious  minded;  he  be¬ 
lieved,  not  as  a  theory  only,  but  as  a  guide  for  living,  that 
the  controlling  power  in  the  universe  is  Spirit,  that  it  is 
man’s  duty  to  serve  that  Spirit  with  all  his  might  and  main, 
and  that  the  true  way  to  serve  is  to  do  what  the  Holy 
Catholic  Church,  Roman  and  Apostolic,  may  direct. 
Spiritual  powers,  conceived  under  many  forms  and  names, 
were  as  real  to  him  as  the  phenomena  of  heat,  light  or  fall¬ 
ing  bodies.  He  lived  in  this  spiritual  world,  as  a  book-lover 
lives  in  a  world  of  books;  he  ate,  walked,  slept,  talked  and 
did  his  daily  duties  in  the  world  of  sense,  and  then  on  his 
knees  in  his  cubicle,  or  at  the  office  of  mass,  or  walking  in 
the  street,  he  would  be  rapt  into  the  world  of  spiritual 
imaginings,  to  return  to  earth  with  the  conviction  that  he 
had  come  down  from  peace  everlasting  to  a  temporary 
battlefield,  where  all  good  soldiers  of  God  should  hazer  de 
veras  guerra  al  diablo,  make  war  in  dead  earnest  against 
Satan. 

He  had  trodden  the  purgative  way  and  the  illuminative 
way,  and  now,  not  with  effort  but  by  merely  dropping  the 
reins  on  the  neck  of  his  desire,  he  could  transport  himself 
into  the  immediate  presence  of  God,  unirse  con  Dios.  Such 
almost  involuntary  sanctifications  may  have  been  more  fre¬ 
quent  in  the  early  days  of  his  conversion,  but  in  his  latter 
days  he  had  more  light  on  things  divine,  and  a  greater 
security  of  constancy  and  steadfastness.  In  a  conversation 

330 


HIS  PIETY 


331 


with  Father  Gonzalez,  after  he  had  finished  dictating  the 
Memoirs,  from  which  I  have  frequently  quoted,  Ignatius 
said,  that  in  his  later  years  his  power  of  communing  with 
God  had  increased,  that  whenever  he  wished  he  could  find 
God,  and  that  he  often  had  visions  when  he  had  important 
matters  to  decide,  especially  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  appeared 
to  him  like  the  sun. 

After  his  death  a  note-book  was  found  that  contained 
notes  of  his  spiritual  experiences  during  the  time  he  was  at 
work  on  the  constitution  of  the  Society.  He  had  noted 
down  his  most  intimate  cogitations,  and  the  heavenly  light 
and  the  visits  that  God  vouchsafed  him.  For  forty  days  he 
gave  his  whole  thought  to  the  question  whether  the 
churches  joined  to  the  professed  houses  should  accept  an 
income  for  their  maintenance;  and  he  recorded  all  his 
spiritual  experiences  throughout  those  forty  days,  at  his 
morning  meditations,  while  celebrating  or  attending  mass, 
and  while  preparing  for  it.  The  notes  reveal  the  scrupulous¬ 
ness  with  which  he  examined  his  conscience,  the  fervor  of 
his  prayers,  his  tears,  the  spiritual  comfort  descending 
bountifully  upon  him  that  betrayed  itself  externally  by  a 
paralysis  of  voice  and  breath,  by  violent  pulsations  in  his 
veins,  and  inwardly  by  the  almost  continuous  revelations 
that  illumined  his  soul  concerning  the  Trinity,  the  Divine 
Essence,  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  from  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  in  short,  many  of  the  qualities  and  operations 
of  Godhead.  These  divine  visitations  were  very  frequent, 
occurring  in  his  cell,  at  table,  indoors  and  out,  day  after 
day,  and  ravished  him  from  himself  as  if  his  soul  were  in 
heaven  and  his  body  only  left  on  earth.  I  will  quote  a 
few  lines,  word  for  word,  from  the  note-book: 

Saturday,  fifth  mass  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  At  the  usual 
prayers,  nothing  very  much  at  the  beginning ;  then,  towards 
the  middle  of  prayers,  a  sense  of  spiritual  comfort,  and  the 
sight  of  something  very  resplendent.  When  the  altar  was 
being  made  ready,  Jesus  presented  Himself  to  my  soul,  and 
I  felt  moved  to  follow  Him,  in  the  conviction  that  He  is  the 
chief  and  captain  of  the  Company — (This  conviction  is  the 


332 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


strongest  argument  in  favor  of  absolute  poverty,  although 
I  have  set  forth  other  reasons  in  my  chapter  on  Elections) — 
This  thought  stirred  me  to  tears,  and  to  steadfastness  of 
purpose,  so  that  if,  either  on  that  day  or  the  days  follow¬ 
ing,  I  had  been  deprived  of  tears  at  mass,  this  feeling  would 
have  been  sufficient  (I  think)  to  make  me  strong  in  time 
of  trial  and  temptation. 

And  Gonzalez  says,  that  in  the  last  years  Ignatius  would 
often  stay  at  prayer  in  his  private  chapel,  leaving  him  to 
attend  to  whatever  business  might  come  up,  but  that  some¬ 
times  he  needed  to  consult  him.  ‘‘And  whenever  I  went 
in,  and  that  was  very  often,  his  countenance  shone  so  that 
I  stood  still  in  amazement.” 

The  long  practice  of  piety,  vivified  by  his  absolute  domi¬ 
nation  of  bodily  appetites  and  impulses,  and  exalted  by 
his  passionate  love  of  God,  had  carried  him  all  along  from 
the  purgative  way  to  this  final  stage  of  what  the  mystics 
call  unity  with  God.  There  is  superabundant  testimony 
as  to  all  these  mystical  experiences.  Prayer  in  church, 
while  there  was  music  and  singing,  affected  him  especially; 
he  told  Gonzalez  that  if  he  went  into  church  during  the 
chants,  at  once  he  seemed  wholly  transported  out  of  him¬ 
self.  On  one  occasion,  when  saying  mass  and  holding 
Christ’s  body  in  his  hands,  he  beheld  Him  also  in  heaven  ; 
and  on  another,  while  he  was  adoring  the  Most  Blessed 
Sacrament,  he  saw  up  above  a  brightness  so  dazzling  that 
he  did  not  know  whether  to  adore  this  or  that,  but  then 
comprehended  that  the  two  were  but  one.  At  certain  sea¬ 
sons,  even  as  often  as  ten  times  a  day,  he  was  able  to  behold 
the  presence  of  God,  but  these  visitations  were  followed  by 
great  bodily  exhaustion.  The  Lord,  he  said,  had  given 
him  the  spirit  of  devotion,  and  on  account  of  his  weakness 
and  wretchedness  visited  him  often;  and  that  he  did  not 
think  he  could  live  without  these  spiritual  comfortings,  that 
is,  could  not  live  unless  he  could  lay  hold  of  something  that 
neither  was  nor  ever  could  be  self, — unless  his  soul  was  rest¬ 
ing  upon  God.  He  once  told  Lainez  that  he  had  read  the 
lives  of  many  saints;  but  that,  though  he  dared  not  be  so 


HIS  PIETY 


333 


bold  as  to  put  himself  ahead  of  the  meanest  saint,  he  would 
not  exchange  what  he  had  felt  and  tasted  of  God  for  all 
their  experiences;  and,  also,  that  if  perfection  consisted 
solely  in  holy  desires,  he  would  not  yield  to  any  man  that 
ever  lived.  And  again,  he  said,  that  at  times  it  had  been  his 
wish,  when  he  did  wrong,  to  suffer  some  spiritual  pain,  like 
the  diminution  of  grace  or  consolations,  for  then  he  felt 
that  he  would  acquire  greater  mastery  over  himself,  and  yet 
it  had  never  happened  so,  but  on  the  contrary,  it  appeared 
that  God  had  visited  him  all  the  more. 

But  his  experiences  at  Manresa  were  the  most  striking 
of  all.  According  to  his  own  memoirs,  while  praying  on 
the  steps  of  a  monastery,  his  understanding  was  lifted  up, 
and  he  beheld  (with  overmastering  tears  and  sobs)  the  Holy 
Trinity  in  its  threefold  form,  like  chords  in  unison,  and  again 
the  act  of  creation  mirrored  itself  in  his  understanding  like 
a  whiteness,  shooting  forth  rays,  from  which  God  created 
light;  and  at  mass,  at  the  elevation  of  the  Host,  he  saw  with 
inward  eye  white  radiations  from  on  high,  and  with  his  own 
understanding,  how  Christ  our  Lord  was  present  in  the  Holy 
Sacrament.  These  visions  seem,  if  one  may  judge  of  such 
things,  to  have  come  to  him  more  readily  because  of  an 
extraordinary  power  of  mental  concentration.  He  seems 
to  have  been  able  to  shut  all  windows  of  sense,  to  stop 
all  crevices,  through  which  the  deceitful  appearances  of 
mortal  things  come  in  upon  the  mind,  and  to  throw  open 
wide  some  portal  of  the  soul  through  which  heavenly  visi¬ 
tants  descended  at  will.  Not  only  when  he  said  mass,  but 
when  he  blessed  the  food,  or  rendered  thanks,  or  was 
engaged  in  the  most  inconsiderable  matters  that  bore  a  ref¬ 
erence  to  God,  he  was  so  gathered  within  his  innermost 
self,  so  rapt  from  things  of  sense,  that  it  seemed  to  those 
about  that  he  saw  before  him  the  Majesty  of  God. 

Such  visitations  and  visions,  such  bodying  forth  in  seem¬ 
ingly  solid  form  of  ideas  and  symbols,  are  out  of  the  course 
of  our  modern  ways  of  thinking,  and  beyond  the  sympathies 
of  most  people,  but  they  are  no  stranger  than  phenomena 
investigated  every  day  by  the  Society  of  Psychical  Research; 
human  emotions  and  their  power  over  the  imagination 


334 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


remain  constant,  the  imagery,  the  hieroglyphics,  the  pictured 
language,  changes.  The  apprehensive  understanding 
catches  the  molten  passion  and  pours  it  into  the  mould  of 
what  is  most  dearly  beloved;  and  a  vision  of  Christ,  or  of 
a  son  shot  at  the  head  of  his  company,  stands  glorious  and 
triumphant,  as  visible  as  the  most  conspicuous  object  of 
sense  in  the  light  of  high  noon.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says: 

The  idea  of  Angels  is  usually  treated  as  fanciful.  Imagi¬ 
native  it  is,  but  not  altogether  fanciful,  and  though  the 
physical  appearance  and  attributes  of  such  imaginary  beings 
may  have  been  over-emphasized  or  misconceived,  yet  facts 
known  to  me  indicate  that  we  are  not  really  lonely  in  our 
struggle,  that  our  destiny  is  not  left  to  haphazard,  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  laissez-jaire  in  a  highly  organized 
universe.  Help  may  be  rejected,  but  help  is  available;  a 
ministry  of  benevolence  surrounds  us — a  cloud  of  witnesses 
— not  witnesses  only  but  helpers,  agents  like  ourselves  of 
the  immanent  God. 

Ignatius  would  have  smiled  at  such  a  milk-and-water 
statement;  to  him,  if  there  were  doubt  as  to  either  world, 
it  was  this  palpable  earth  that  needed  a  guarantee  of  reality. 

Ignatius,  of  course,  believed  devoutly  in  the  efficacy  of 
prayer;  whether  to  move  the  hearts  of  men,  to  check  the 
course  of  illness,  or  stay  the  hand  of  death.  When  Cardinal 
Guidiccioni  opposed  the  grant  of  the  charter,  Ignatius  com¬ 
manded  that  several. thousand  masses  be  said;  and,  so  again, 
a  special  mass  when  the  Venetian  Senate  hesitated  to  con¬ 
firm  a  grant  of  real  property  to  the  Society.  The  Fathers 
believed  that  Ignatius’s  merits  saved  Claude  Jay’s  life,  and 
prevented  Bobadilla  from  forsaking  the  Society.  And  as 
his  prayers  brought  aid  from  deity,  from  angels  and  saints, 
so,  on  the  other  hand,  devils  fought  against  the  champion 
who  balked  them  of  their  prey.  In  dcemones  mirum  exer - 
cuit  imperium.  “One  night,  while  Ignatius  was  asleep  in 
bed,  the  Devil  ( ut  creditur )  tried  to  suffocate  him.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  he  saw  a  man  or  a  demon  clutching 
him  by  the  throat  and  squeezing  his  wind-pipe,  and  he  cried 


HIS  PIETY 


335 


out  ‘Jesus’  with  so  violent  an  effort  that  for  many  days  he 
was  so  hoarse  that  he  could  scarcely  speak.”  And  there 
were  various  other  testimonies  of  the  Devil’s  hostility. 
Usually,  Ribadeneira  says,  one  should  not  believe  the 
Devil,  even  when  he  speaks  the  truth,  for  he  only  does  so  to 
deceive;  nevertheless,  the  Lord  often  obliges  evil  spirits  to 
testify  against  their  wills.  For  instance,  a  young  Biscayan 
was  possessed  of  the  Devil,  and  began  talking  Latin,  a 
language  which  he  did  not  know.  The  Devil  flung  the  lad 
on  the  ground  with  great  fury,  but  at  the  mention  of 
Ignatius’s  name,  howled  and  declared  that  he  had  no  greater 
enemy  than  he.  With  such  evidence,  added  to  the  visible 
holiness  of  his  life,  it  is  no  wonder  that  his  brethren  recog¬ 
nized  him  to  be  a  man  apart.  There  is  a  pretty  anecdote 
as  to  this,  which  Lainez  himself  told  Ribadeneira: 

Lainez  had  heard  for  certain  from  Father  Araoz  that  the 
spiritual  guardian  who  kept  watch  over  Ignatius,  was  not 
a  mere  angel,  as  in  the  case  of  other  men,  but  an  archangel; 
so  he  asked  Ignatius  if  it  were  true.  Ignatius  answered 
never  a  word,  but  such  a  flush  came  over  his  face,  as  when 
a  most  modest  maiden  is  surprised  by  men. 

The  shame-faced  look,  the  change  of  countenance,  the 
blush,  answered  the  question  clearly  enough  with  a  yes. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  the  quality  that,  perhaps,  more 
than  any  other,  impressed  his  companions  with  a  sense  of 
his  rare  spiritual  nature, — his  meekness.  In  the  world, 
where,  as  La  Rochefoucauld  says,  a  man  must  impose  his 
own  good  opinion  of  himself  upon  his  fellows,  the  whole 
organization  of  secular  society  has  developed  the  opposite 
qualities,  self-confidence,  self-assertion,  and  whatever  other 
traits  win  for  a  man  position,  applause  or  riches,  and  has 
pushed  this  gentle  virtue  to  the  wall.  The  structure  of 
society  in  Loyola’s  time  was  as  unfavorable  to  meekness, 
as  the  feudal  system  had  been,  or  as  democracy  is  today. 
The  spirit  of  arrogance  was  in  the  saddle.  The  nobles  were 
taught  that  they  were  better  than  burghers,  burghers  that 
they  were  better  than  peasants;  Christians  were  taught  that 


336 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


they  were  better  than  Mohammedans  or  Jews;  Frenchmen 
that  they  were  better  than  Italians;  Spaniards  that  they 
were  superior  to  all  the  world.  There  was  little  meekness 
in  Luther,  none  in  Calvin.  Only  those  men,  Protestants 
or  Catholics,  who  honestly  desired  to  follow  the  example  of 
Christ,  really  believed  in  meekness;  it  was  the  contrast  be¬ 
tween  Christ’s  life  and  theirs  that  engendered  the  feeling. 
When  any  man  stands,  let  us  suppose,  on  the  prow  of  a  ship 
by  night,  and  looks  up  at  the  bespangled  sky,  and  sees 
stars  and  stars  stretching  back  into  the  abyss  of  space, 
beyond  the  reach  of  human  senses,  beyond  the  very  border¬ 
land  of  thought,  there  comes  over  him  a  sense  of  the  con¬ 
trast  between  himself  and  the  immeasurably  great,  and  for 
the  moment  meekness  wells  up  in  his  heart.  Loyola  felt 
such  a  feeling  as  he  looked  up  to  Christ.  Today  we  do  not 
regard  that  attitude  of  mind  as  virtuous,  but  the  believers 
in  Christ  did.  Like  us,  Ignatius  in  his  youth,  as  a  member 
of  a  dominant  people  and  a  dominant  religion,  had  been 
taught  arrogance;  after  his  conversion  he  struggled  to  attain 
meekness.  But  in  spite  of  his  efforts  his  underlying  pagan 
pride  is  often  little  more  than  varnished  over  by  his 
Christian  principle,  and  for  that  reason  anyone  who  reads 
his  letters  and  the  pages  of  his  biographers  might,  not  un¬ 
naturally,  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  his  humility  was 
hypocritical.  Nothing,  I  think,  could  be  more  unjust.  At 
bottom  he  was  a  very  proud  man;  and  after  his  death  his 
pride  seems  to  have  infected  the  whole  Order.  Voltaire 
sums  up  in  one  word  the  causes,  operating  within  the 
Society,  that  finally  united  almost  all  Europe  against  it 
and  wrung  from  the  Pope  the  bull  of  suppression, — orgueil. 
Enough  of  this;  I  mention  it  in  order  to  do  full  justice  to 
his  valiant  efforts  to  attain  humility.  Those  efforts  are 
frequently  very  unattractive  to  our  way  of  thinking.  There 
is  an  exaggeration  about  them,  an  utter  disregard  of  the 
happy  mean  which  he  himself  praises.  They  look  fantastic 
and  distorted.  But,  in  order  to  do  him  justice,  one  must 
regard  him  as  a  sort  of  Laocoon  struggling  in  anguish  to 
save  his  children  and  himself  from  the  strangulation  of 
pride. 


HIS  PIETY 


337 


Instead  of  picking  out  here  and  there  bits  of  evidence 
to  show  where  and  how  he  succeeded  in  the  pursuit  of  this 
virtue,  I  will  quote  the  summing  up  of  his  biographer, 
Father  Bartoli,  S.J.: 

To  pass  for  an  ill-bred,  dull,  unintelligent  man;  to 
acknowledge  one’s  sins  publicly  and  reproach  oneself  for 
them ;  to  dress  shabbily,  expose  oneself  in  public  to  the  con¬ 
tempt  of  everybody,  looking  like  a  boor,  barefoot,  and  hair 
unkempt;  lodge  at  an  alms-house,  associate  with  beggars, 
and  behave  as  they  do  in  order  to  pass  as  such  by  birth 
instead  of  by  choice;  to  beg  from  door  to  door,  and  choose 
houses  where  one  would  get  more  insults  than  crusts;  to 
tarry  there  in  order  to  rejoice  in  rough  usage  and  in  the 
jeers  heaped  upon  one;  to  give  thanks  for  brutality,  and 
good  for  evil;  to  steer  wide  of  places  where  he  was  known 
to  be  a  gentleman  and  revered  as  a  saint ;  to  go  back  to  his 
native  land,  among  his  own  people,  as  a  mendicant,  and  live 
like  a  mendicant,  with  no  lodging  but  the  alms-house,  no 
food  but  bread  begged  from  door  to  door;  to  rejoice  when 
treated  as  a  hypocrite,  rascal,  or  sorcerer;  when  dragged 
into  court,  to  refuse  the  assistance  of  counsel;  when  locked 
in  jail  to  burst  out  into  jubilation,  when  fettered  to  the 
prison  wall  to  talk  in  so  high  a  strain  of  the  glory  of  suffer¬ 
ing  for  Christ’s  sake,  as  to  seem  less  a  prisoner  than  a  mad¬ 
man: — these,  from  the  first  days  of  his  conversion,  are  some 
of  the  marks  of  Loyola’s  humility. 

This  is  eloquent,  this  is  a  true  picture  of  what  Ignatius 
underwent;  but  is  it  humility  or  is  it  pride?  I  feel  more 
clear  as  to  other  testimony,  that  may  be  grouped  into  three 
classes:  (1)  His  companions  are  all  agreed  that  he  was  meek 
of  heart;  Pater  humillimus  fuit  et  suce  virtutis  occultator. 

(2)  He  was  never  dogmatic  in  his  opinions,  unless  he  felt 
that  he  had  received  illumination  from  God;  he  made  it  a 
practise  to  consult  those  who  were  better  informed  than 
himself,  and  “very  readily”  submitted  to  their  judgment. 

(3)  He  was  so  secure  in  his  consciousness  of  his  own 
modesty,  that  on  one  of  those  rare  occasions  on  which 


338 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


he  unloosed  his  tongue  as  to  his  heavenly  visitations,  when 
Ribadeneira  said  to  him,  that  a  stranger  might  suspect  him 
of  vainglory,  he  answered  that  he  had  less  fear  of  that  sin 
than  of  any  other,  and  added  that  he  did  not  reveal  the 
thousandth  part  of  his  gifts  from  God,  for  he  did  not 
think  it  suitable,  as  the  listeners  were  not  capable  of 
understanding. 

On  the  whole  it  may  be  that  my  partial  disagreement 
with  his  eulogists  as  to  his  possession  of  this  virtue,  is  not 
a  question  of  substance  but  of  words.  What  they  call 
humility  I  call  self-mortification;  what  I  call  humility,  they 
would  call  the  indwelling  of  heavenly  grace.  But  whatever 
this  quality  was,  heavenly  grace,  modesty  or  meekness,  he 
strove  to  put  it  to  use  and  live  in  accordance  with  its  light. 
It  showed  itself  in  his  continual  endeavor  to  do  better. 
When  he  had  anything  of  consequence  to  do,  his  procedure 
was,  first,  to  strip  himself  of  all  desire  and  self-love ;  second, 
to  pray  for  help;  third,  to  consider  and  think  as  best  he 
could;  and,  fourth,  to  lay  the  matter  before  God.  He  told 
Father  Gonzalez  that  he  never  ventured  to  do  anything  of 
importance,  although  all  the  reasons  were  in  its  favor,  with¬ 
out  having  recourse  to  God.  And  Gonzalez  adds: 

I  have  heard  him  say  that  he  would  like  to  behave  toward 
his  neighbors  as  the  angels  behave  toward  us,  and  in  two 
special  respects:  first,  not  to  fail  to  give  them  all  possible 
aid  to  deliver  them  from  evil,  spiritual  and  physical;  second, 
not  to  lose  his  composure  whatever  should  happen  (as 
angels  never  cease  to  gaze  upon  God  and  enjoy  Him)  nor 
to  be  sorrowful  in  such  a  manner  as  to  scant  his  worship. 
He  also  said  that,  even  if  God  were  to  destroy  the  Society, 
he  did  not  think  his  grief  would  diminish  any  of  his  devotion 
towards  God. 

Call  it  humility,  or  what  you  please,  by  his  teaching  and 
example,  the  things  of  this  world  became  as  dust  in  the 
eyes  of  his  companions,  and  they  held  it  to  be  their  duty 
to  proclaim  their  creed. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 


OTHER  TRAITS 

I  do  not  know  how  some  of  these  instances  of  Loyola’s 
disposition  will  affect  the  reader.  His  character  is  subtle; 
its  modelling  is  delicate,  its  color  passes  from  shade  to  shade 
in  almost  imperceptible  gradation,  and  what  at  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  the  scale  seemed  pure  goodness  of  heart,  further 
on  looks  like  tact,  and  further  on  still  seems  to  become 
prudence,  and  at  the  end  almost  an  intense  and  fastidious 
pride.  It  is  well  nigh  impossible  to  determine  where  one 
motive  fades  and  another  becomes  dominant.  He  possessed 
prudence  and  tact  to  a  rare  degree,  and  pride  as  well;  and 
each  of  these  qualities  affects  his  kindness,  and  his  kind¬ 
ness  also  affects  each  one  of  them.  I  will  quote  an  anecdote, 
in  which  I  cannot  tell  whether  Ignatius’s  controlling  motive 
was  Christian  kindness  or  worldly  prudence.  The  refectory 
in  the  house  had  no  window,  and  was  so  dark  that  there 
was  scarcely  any  light  there  at  all.  Its  wall  was  a  party 
wall,  half  owned  by  their  neighbor,  and  a  window  might 
have  been  cut  to  look  out  on  a  court,  without  the  slightest 
prejudice  to  him;  but  he  would  not  consent.  Ignatius  was 
advised  that  the  Society  had  a  legal  right  to  the  window, 
but  rather  than  quarrel  and  go  to  law,  he  preferred  to  have 
a  dark  refectory  for  eight  years.  Finally  the  Society  bought 
the  court  and  cut  the  window.  Again;  after  the  Society 
had  bought  of  this  same  pleasant  neighbor  a  house  called 
the  Torre  Rosso,  close  by,  the  vendor  without  any  right, 
carried  away  its  doors,  window  shutters,  iron-work,  etc., 
but  Ignatius  would  not  hear  of  a  law  suit;  he  said  that  if 
a  man  dedicated  to  religion  suffers  for  the  love  of  our  Lord, 
and  loses  things  temporal  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  charity, 
the  Lord  will  reward  him  abundantly. 

Another  of  his  qualities  was  graciousness.  For  instance, 

339 


340 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


when  going  about  the  house,  if  he  met  one  of  the  brothers 
he  looked  at  him  with  a  most  complaisant  countenance  as 
if  he  would  take  him  into  his  soul;  and  when  a  guest  came 
to  dinner  for  the  first  time,  or  said  good-bye  on  leaving  the 
city,  his  manners  were  affectionately  cordial.  And  yet 
dignity  and  gravity  never  forsook  him.  He  was  affable 
towards  every  one,  familiar  with  none.  He  always  took  into 
account  the  humours  and  feelings  of  those  under  him,  even 
in  trifling  matters;  for  instance,  when  laying  on  a  penance, 
he  would  bid  the  offender  say  what  he  thought  the  penance 
should  be.  His  tact  and  consideration  were  those  of  an 
accomplished  man  of  the  world.  However  frank  in  con¬ 
versation,  no  one  ever  felt  offended  at  his  words  or  his 
manner.  But  though  nobody  was  more  affectionate  and 
affable  than  he,  yet  if  he  did  appear  angry,  nobody  was 
so  feared.  And  his  behaviour  was  always  adjusted  to  those 
with  whom  he  was  dealing.  He  was  especially  careful  to 
treat  capable  Fathers,  on  whom  he  needed  to  rely,  with 
great  circumspection  in  order  not  to  offend  them,  unless  he 
knew  from  experience  that,  whatever  his  manner,  it  was  all 
one  to  them.  And  it  was  his  custom  to  get  things  done,  if 
possible,  without  giving  a  positive  command.  He  liked  it 
best,  if  a  brother  should  do  what  he  wanted  done  as  of  his 
own  inclination,  without  any  sign  from  him;  and  if  it  was 
necessary  to  give  directions,  he  preferred  not  to  make  them 
peremptory.  When  something  was  asked  of  him,  he  im¬ 
mediately  made  up  his  mind  whether  he  could  grant  it  or 
not,  and  if  not,  while  the  other  was  talking,  he  considered 
how  he  could  frame  his  refusal  in  such  a  way  that  the 
petitioner  should  take  no  umbrage.  Sometimes  he  would 
say,  this  matter  must  be  decided  by  some  one  else,  some¬ 
times  he  expatiated  upon  the  difficulties  hedging  it  about; 
and  he  used  such  kind  words,  spoke  so  reasonably  and 
showed  such  real  good  will,  that  the  other  went  away  con¬ 
tent,  or,  if  he  came,  as  sometimes  happened,  on  a  friend’s 
errand,  with  a  conviction  that  his  friend  was  wrong. 

When  two  members  of  the  Society  were  fond  of  one 
another,  he  liked  to  praise  each  to  the  other;  or,  if  two 
happened  to  be  at  odds,  he  took  pains  to  tell  each  separately 


OTHER  TRAITS 


341 


all  the  good  that  he  knew  or  had  heard  of  the  other,  or  he 
would  say  complimentary  things  to  a  third  person  who  he 
knew  would  repeat  them,  and  so  on. 

In  all  such  ways  Ignatius  showed  tact,  and  also  kindness. 
From  that  I  pass  on  to  what  may  more  properly  be  called 
prudence,  pure  and  simple.  In  his  decisions,  he  never  acted 
hastily;  he  never  spoke  at  haphazard,  but  always  upon 
consideration.  When  there  was  time,  he  would  say:  “Dor- 
miremos  sobre  ello.”  (“We  will  sleep  on  this  matter.”)  In 
consequence,  the  things  he  said,  no  matter  when  uttered  or 
under  what  circumstances,  were  like  the  rules  of  a  constitu¬ 
tion,  all  dovetailed  and  fitted  into  one  another.  In  his  latter 
days  he  was  able  to  tell  his  secretary  that  he  had  not  made  a 
rash  promise  for  a  dozen  years.  Whenever  he  wrote  to 
persons  in  high  place,  or  on  business  of  importance,  he  was 
especially  cautious  and  spent  a  long  time  considering  what 
he  should  say,  and  would  read  the  letter  over  and  over, 
weighing  each  word,  erasing  here,  amending  there,  and 
causing  the  draft  to  be  copied  out  again  and  again.  He 
said  that  such  time  and  trouble  were  well  spent.  And  he 
always  made  a  point  of  telling  the  great  personages  he 
met  of  all  the  attacks  and  slanders  that  had  been  directed 
against  him,  so  that  they  should  know  the  truth  and  not 
take  their  first  impressions  from  gossip  or  from  unfriendly 
persons. 

In  one  matter  he  was  very  wary.  He  would  not  suffer 
any  criticism  of  the  Pope,  nor  any  suggestions,  or  insinua¬ 
tion,  that  the  Pope  might  have  done  this,  or  commanded 
that,  more  to  the  advantage  of  his  flock.  This  was  par¬ 
ticularly  so  after  Caraffa,  with  whom,  it  will  be  remembered, 
he  had  once  had  a  falling  out,  had  mounted  the  pontifical 
throne.  Lainez  preached  a  sermon  in  one  of  the  big  Roman 
churches  on  simony;  the  sermon  was  most  proper  but  be¬ 
cause  he  feared  that  some  one  might  misconstrue  what 
Lainez  had  said  into  a  reflection  upon  some  measure  that 
Caraffa  had  just  sanctioned,  he  took  him  to  task  and  pun¬ 
ished  him.  And  he  warned  Ribadeneira,  who  was  setting 
off  on  a  trip  to  Flanders,  to  beware  how  he  spoke  about 
matters  that  touched  His  Holiness,  saying  that,  sinco  some 


342 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


of  the  things  the  Pope  had  done  were  “hard  to  excuse”  it 
would  be  as  well  to  say  nothing  of  him,  but  rather  to 
expatiate  upon  all  that  his  predecessor,  Marcellus  II,  had 
done  for  the  Society.  And  when  he  himself  had  an  errand 
to  this  Pope,  on  some  matter  I  think  relating  to  the  Col- 
legio  Romano,  he  waited  till  he  had  heard  that  the  Pope 
was  in  good  spirits  over  favorable  news  from  England 
under  Queen  Mary.  So,  too,  in  the  earlier  days  of  the 
Society,  he  never  allowed  the  purveyor  of  the  house  to 
ask  alms  of  Paul  III,  for  he  thought  that  by  refraining 
the  Company  was  more  likely  to  gain  the  Pope’s  good 
will,  and  thereby  religious  privileges;  and  he  acted  the 
same  way  towards  gentlemen  of  means  who  were  good 
friends  to  the  Society. 

Out  of  prudence,  too,  he  was  careful  to  avoid  giving  the 
Dominican  friars  cause  for  a  quarrel.  There  had  been 
trouble  enough,  he  thought,  with  Melchior  Cano  in  Spain. 
So  when  Dr.  Olave  was  about  to  print  a  book  that,  among 
other  things,  asserted  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the 
Virgin,  a  doctrine  which  he  firmly  believed  but  the  Domini¬ 
cans  did  not,  he  bade  him  leave  out  the  passage.  And  in 
delicate  matters  of  business,  where  suspicion,  malice  or  mis¬ 
interpretation  might  induce  those  with  whom  he  was  dealing 
to  pervert  the  truth,  it  was  his  wont,  whether  the  persons 
concerned  were  members  of  the  household  or  from  outside, 
to  call  in  witnesses;  and  in  all  serious  cases  within  the 
Society,  where  accusations  of  wrong-doing  were  brought, 
he  required  the  charges  and  countercharges  put  into 
writing.  This  virtue  of  prudence,  it  need  hardly  be  said, 
belonged  to  him  in  his  capacity  of  superior,  not  of  subordi¬ 
nate.  He  said  he  should  obey  at  once  whatever  mad  act 
the  Pope  might  command;  some  brother  protested,  and  he 
answered,  as  Napoleon  might  have  done, — “Prudence  is  a 
matter  for  those  who  command,  not  for  those  who  are  to 
obey.” 

His  circumspection,  his  sternness,  his  self-mortification, 
and  his  passionate  devotion  to  what  he  believed  to  be  the 
service  of  God,  might  well  make  one  think  of  him  as  wholly 
austere  and  serious,  quite  without  any  sense  of  humour; 


OTHER  TRAITS 


343 


but  that  would  be  wrong;  from  time  to  time  he  reveals 
touches  of  humour.  I  find  but  few  instances,  it  is  true, 
but  that  is  because  conventional  hagiography,  especially 
since  the  Counter  Reformation,  has  affected  to  consider 
jests  and  laughter  unspiritual  qualities.  It  is  one  of  the 
defects  in  Christianity,  not  to  make  much  of  mirth;  and  I 
dare  say  that  the  same  reproach  may  be  made  against  all 
religions,  except  Paganism,  and  certainly  against  almost  all 
religious  biography.  It  is  not  that  great  saints  have  lacked 
all  sense  of  fun;  but  their  biographers  have  been  over- 
prudish  and  priggish.  Loyola  did  not  laugh  often,  he  ac¬ 
cepted  Thomas-a-Kempis’s  teaching  that  life  is  a  valley  of 
tears;  and  even  when  he  did  relax,  I  suspect  that  Polanco, 
Gonzalez  and  Ribadeneira  stopped  their  ears,  or  turned 
away.  They  were  afraid  of  him,  and  took  an  unconscious 
revenge  by  making  his  dominant  habit  of  austerity  seem 
almost  uninterrupted.  They  ventured,  however,  to  preserve 
the  following  anecdotes: 

Several  of  us  were  at  dinner  once  with  the  Padre,  includ¬ 
ing  Bobadilla  and  Salmeron  [most  guileless  of  men,  such  as 
Phillips  Brooks  or  Cardinal  Gibbons]  and  somebody  said 
that  it  was  reported  in  Rome  that  we  were  all  hypocrites. 
The  Padre  remarked  that  he  wished  that  we  had  much  more 
of  that  hypocrisy,  and  added,  “I  have  been  thinking  over 
everybody  in  the  Society,  and  I  don’t  find  a  single  hypo¬ 
crite,  unless  it  is  Bobadilla  and  Salmeron.” 

And  this: 

The  great  pleasure  he  took  in  talking  about  and  hearing 
about  the  affairs  of  the  brothers  is  a  sign  of  his  great  love 
for  them.  He  made  me  read  edifying  letters  about  our  new 
colleges  two  or  three  times  over.  .  .  .  And  he  often  talked 
of  the  brothers  in  Portugal  and  India,  taking  the  greatest 
interest  in  hearing  what  they  ate,  how  they  slept,  what  they 
wore,  and  in  all  particulars  and  details.  Once,  while  we 
were  talking  about  the  brothers  in  India,  he  said,  “Oh,  dear! 
how  much  I  should  like  to  know  how  many  fleas  bite  them 
at  night.” 


344 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Here  is  a  third : 

A  friend  reported  to  Ignatius  that  a  certain  priest  in 
Spain,  Father  Barbaran,  was  furious  with  the  Society,  and 
vowed  that  he  would  have  every  Jesuit  from  Perpignan  to 
Seville  burned  at  the  stake.  Ignatius  wrote  back : 

Dear  Friend: 

Please  tell  Father  Barbaran — since  he  says  that  he  will 
have  all  of  us  that  he  can  find  from  Perpignan  to  Seville 
burned  at  the  stake — that  I  say  that  it  is  my  desire  that 
he  and  all  his  friends,  not  only  those  to  be  found  between 
Perpignan  and  Seville,  but  all  that  there  are  in  all  the 
world,  shall  be  set  on  fire  and  burn  with  the  Holy  Spirit, 
that  all  may  come  into  the  glory  of  God.  Tell  him,  also, 
that  our  affairs  are  in  adjudication  before  the  tribunal  of 
the  Governor  and  the  Papal  Vicar,  and  that  they  are 
about  to  pass  judgment;  and  that  if  Father  Barbaran  has 
aught  against  us,  I  beg  him  to  lay  it  before  those  judges. 
For  if  I  am  in  debt,  I  wish  to  pay;  and  I  prefer  to  suffer 
punishment  alone  rather  than  that  all  of  our  brethren 
between  Perpignan  and  Seville  should  be  burned  at  the 
stake. 

Inigo. 

There  is  another  anecdote  that  I  shall  quote  in  this  con¬ 
nection.  I  have  been  in  doubt  whether  to  take  it  au  pied 
de  la  lettre  or  not ;  from  the  turn  of  phrase  I  incline  to  think 
that  Ignatius’s  words,  though  serious,  have  a  touch  of 
humour,  although  Ribadeneira  does  not  suspect  it.  One 
day  Ignatius  gave  orders  that  everybody  should  assemble 
in  the  refectory  after  dinner,  without  a  single  exception, 
whether  priest,  or  professed,  or  even  the  First  Fathers,  in 
order  to  hear  Lainez  explain  some  new  rules,  that  Ignatius 
had  drawn  up.  Such  an  assemblage  was  most  unusual.  All 
came  in  and  while  Lainez  was  in  the  midst  of  his  talk,  a 
great  crash  shook  the  refectory;  everybody  was  frightened. 
After  Lainez  had  finished,  the  brothers  found  that  the  roof 
which  covered  a  corner  of  the  garden,  where  the  Fathers 
were  in  the  habit  of  sitting  after  supper,  had  fallen  down, 


OTHER  TRAITS 


345 


and  had  it  not  been  for  the  orders  that  no  one  should  be 
excused  from  the  meeting,  undoubtedly  somebody  would 
have  been  killed  or  badly  hurt.  When  this  was  told  to 
Ignatius,  he  said:  “God  shows  by  this  sign  that  the  rules 
do  not  displease  Him.”  Perhaps  this  speech  may  be  wholly 
pious  and  serious.  But  remember  Loyola’s  message  to  Dr. 
Olave,  with  respect  to  sickness,  which  contained  a  little 
kindly  irony;  and  also  that  he  had  been  a  soldier  until  he 
was  six  and  twenty,  very  far  from  pious,  and  that  the  one 
episode  known  of  his  youth  is  the  carnival  frolic,  which 
seems  to  have  been  a  practical  joke  of  irritating  dimensions. 
I  do  not  think  that  Rodriguez  would  have  made  jokes  as 
he  does,  or  that  Lainez  would  have  written  the  letter  he  did 
about  the  little  oven  of  a  room  at  Trent,  if  he  had  not 
been  able  to  count  upon  Loyola’s  sense  of  humour.  And 
Nadal  says:  Qui  in  ejus  cubiculo  Icetissimi  semper  ac 
risibundi.  (“In  Loyola’s  room  everybody  was  laughing  and 
jolly.”) 

There  are  some  other  details  as  to  his  character  that 
should  not  be  omitted.  I  quote  Gonzalez: 

It  is  remarkable  to  see  what  consideration  he  shows  in 
his  relations  with  everybody,  whoever  it  may  be,  excepting 
with  Nadal  and  Polanco,  for  he  shows  no  regard  at  all  for 
them,  but  treates  them  harshly  and  loads  them  with 
punishments. 

Ribadeneira  says  the  same  thing: 

He  hardly  ever  said  a  good  word  to  Master  Juan  de 
Polanco,  his  secretary,  who  had  been  his  hands  and  feet  for 
nine  years,  unless  it  was  the  day  before  he  died,  when  he 
sent  him  to  ask  the  Pope’s  blessing.  And  at  times  he  gave 
Lainez  such  terrible  scoldings  (did  tan  terribles  capellos ) 
that  he  made  him  cry.  .  .  .  What  makes  it  more  singular 
still  is,  that  our  blessed  Father  had  said  to  me  that  there 
was  no  man  in  all  the  Society  to  whom  it  owed  more  than 
to  Lainez,  even  including  Francis  Xavier.  .  .  .  The  year 
before  he  died,  he  behaved  to  him  with  great  harshness  .  .  . 


346 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


and  Lainez  felt  so  badly  that  he  had  recourse  to  the  Lord, 
and  said,  “Lord,  what  have  I  done  against  our  Society  that 
this  saint  treats  me  in  this  fashion?” 

The  official  interpretation  of  this  asperity  against  these 
excellent,  dutiful,  able  men  is  that  it  was  specifically  de¬ 
signed  to  develop  their  moral  strength,  their  humility,  or 
some  such  virtues;  however,  for  my  part,  I  cannot  but 
think  that  Ignatius  was  suffering  from  an  ill-used  and  ailing 
body,  and  being  unable  to  control  his  physical  irritability, 
vented  it,  as  nervous  invalids  do,  upon  those  nearest,  and 
perhaps  dearest,  to  them. 

A  second  point  is  duplicity,  which  I  have  promised  to 
point  out  whenever  I  come  upon  any  traces.  I  do  not  know 
whether  moralists  will  consider  Loyola’s  practice  of  grant¬ 
ing  favors  himself,  and  refusing  them  through  others,  who 
are  not  to  reveal  that  they  act  on  his  orders,  as  double 
dealing  or  not.  Here  is  an  instance  of  a  somewhat  analo¬ 
gous  method.  Ignatius  sent  the  following  instructions  to  a 
Father  far  from  Rome: 

(1)  Write  me  a  letter,  that  can  be  shown  to  everybody, 
important  people  and  unimportant  people,  to  good  and  bad, 
without  any  words  in  it  that  reflect  on  any  of  them. 

(2)  In  other  letters  that  you  write  to  me,  you  can  put 
in  all  the  particulars  you  wish,  that  you  may  think  will  be 
to  the  advantage  of  what  we  all  believe  is  for  the  greater 
service  of  God. 

This  practice  was  always  followed.  There  were  some 
letters  written  to  be  passed  around,  and  others  that  were 
not  to  be  passed  around.  Such  methods,  I  presume,  have 
been  followed  by  every  corporation  that  ever  existed,  lay 
or  religious,  by  all  officials  in  the  service  of  a  state,  or 
monarch,  or  house  of  business,  as  well  as  by  many  private 
persons.  I  doubt  whether  the  apostles  would  have  done 
so,  or  Marcus  Aurelius,  or  Socrates.  It  does  not  seem  con¬ 
sistent  with  perfect  candor;  and  yet  it  is  not  a  grave  offense. 

Here  is  another  possible  instance  of  duplicity;  but  as 


OTHER  TRAITS 


347 


the  accusation  comes  from  Simon  Rodriguez  in  a  moment 
of  irritation  and  peevishness,  while  smarting  under  punish¬ 
ment  for  his  misbehaviour  in  Portugal,  it  is  of  no  more  sub¬ 
stance  than  the  others.  In  answer  to  Simon’s  complaints, 
Ignatius  wrote  to  him:  “I  declare  before  Heaven  that  I 
yield  to  no  creature  of  all  there  are  on  earth  in  my  love 
for  you  and  in  my  wish  for  your  spiritual  and  physical  good, 
to  the  divine  honor  and  glory.”  To  which  Rodriguez 
replied : 


Venice,  Dec.  22,  1554. 

To  Father  Ignatius  Loyola: 

May  the  grace  and  love  of  Christ  be  in  our  souls.  I  have 
received  yours  of  the  15th  of  this  month.  As  to  what  you 
say,  that  there  is  no  one  that  loves  me  more  in  body  and 
soul,  etc. — the  proof  of  love  is  to  show  it  in  actions,  and 
in  this  matter  your  actions  should  confirm  what  your  letter 
says. 

A  committee  of  the  Fathers  had  passed  upon  Rodriguez’s 
conduct,  they  had  found  fault,  and  Loyola  had  imposed 
punishment,  exiling  the  luckless  Portuguese  to  a  little  place 
near  Venice.  Rodriguez  was  very  cross.  That  is  all  there 
is  to  it.  And  his  ill  temper  did  not  last  long;  in  a  letter, 
dated  “Da  la  hermit  a  de  Basan  [Bassano]  lugar  de  peni¬ 
tential  he  says  that  he  is  sorry  to  learn  that  Father 
Ignatius  is  not  pleased  with  his  letters,  and  sends  him  a 
blessing  as  big  as  the  mountains  of  Bassano  “where  eighteen 
years  ago  he  came  to  see  me  when  I  was  at  the  point  of 
death.”  And  finally — for  I  have  tried  to  let  nothing  con¬ 
cerning  this  charge  of  duplicity,  whether  touching  Loyola 
or  any  of  his  companions,  escape  me — I  find  in  a  letter  of 
condolence  and  warning  written  by  Bobadilla  to  the  Pope’s 
son,  Cardinal  Alessandro  Farnese,  on  the  murder  of  his 
uncle,  Pietro  Aloisio  Farnese,  these  words,  “la  prudentia 
ha  de  disimular  algo,  y  proveer  por  via  quieta  a  lo  por - 
venir!y  (“Prudence  must  dissemble  a  little,  and  by  some 
quiet  means  make  provision  for  what  may  happen.”) 
There !  at  any  rate,  I  have  disclosed  the  worst. 


348 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


One  more  thing,  and  I  shall  leave  this  aspect  of  his 
character.  I  do  not  know  whether  Catholics,  as  a  rule, 
approve  of  the  institution  of  the  Inquisition,  or  not; 
Protestants  do  not.  I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  Catholics 
approve  of  autos-da-fe,  racks,  dungeons,  espionage,  and 
whatever  other  deviltries  can  be  held  up  against  the  Spanish 
Inquisition ;  I  refer  to  the  principle  of  an  organized  body  of 
educated  and  conscientious  men,  charged  with  the  duty  of 
discovering  those  who  think  erroneously  or  wickedly,  to 
their  own  ultimate  harm,  and  perhaps  to  the  grave  danger 
of  other  people,  on  religious  matters,  and  of  persuading 
such  persons,  by  some  means  to  abandon  error  and  accept 
truth,  or  else  preventing  them,  in  one  way  or  another, 
from  spreading  corruption.  It  is  very  easy  to  see  after  the 
event  that  the  system  is  wrong.  It  was  based  on  the  con¬ 
viction  that  the  truth  was  known,  and  that  it  was  of  ever¬ 
lasting  importance  to  know  that  truth;  believing  this,  it 
would  have  been  brutal,  non-human  certainly,  to  see  men 
drift  away  from  truth  down  to  hell  without  making  frantic 
efforts  to  save  them.  The  Bible  spoke  clearly:  “It  is  profit¬ 
able  for  thee  that  one  of  thy  members  should  perish,  and 
not  that  thy  whole  body  should  be  cast  into  hell.”  The 
practice  of  toleration  is  partly  due  to  a  return  from  mediae¬ 
val  Christianity  to  the  primitive  Christianity  of  the 
gospels,  but  chiefly  to  doubts  as  to  whether  we  possess 
religious  truth,  or  what  its  nature  may  be.  The  Inquisition 
was  an  integral  part  of  mediaeval  Christianity,  and 
Ignatius  accepted  all  mediaeval  Christianity  and  approved 
of  the  Inquisition;  I  shall  not  discuss  whether  he  ought  to 
have  approved  of  it,  but  confine  myself  to  his  connection 
with  it.  I  do  not  find  that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
Spanish  Inquisition,  except  on  one  occasion  to  ask  for  the 
pardon  of  certain  Moriscos  who  had  fallen  back  into  error 
after  baptism.  The  Spanish  Inquisition  was  established, 
or  rather  revived  and  reinvigorated,  by  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  years  before  Ignatius  was  born,  to  the  great  satis¬ 
faction  of  the  Christian  population,  as  an  engine  to  deal 
with  Jews  and  Moors;  it  persecuted  Ignatius  during  his 
early  missionary  days,  and  did  not  get  to  ferreting  out  and 


OTHER  TRAITS 


349 


punishing  Protestants  until  after  his  death.  His  relations 
with  the  Inquisition  concern  its  establishment  in  Portugal 
and  in  Italy. 

John  III,  king  of  Portugal,  was  a  bigot;  he  wished  to  per¬ 
secute  the  Jews  in  his  kingdom,  and  had  done  what  he 
could,  but  without  much  success,  to  induce  Pope  Clement 
VII  to  give  him  a  free  hand  in  dealing  with  misbelievers  and 
heretics.  He  began  again  with  Paul  III,  and  thanks  to  the 
support  of  the  Emperor,  obtained  in  part  what  he  wanted; 
but  as  the  Pope  refused  to  accede  to  other  demands,  a  quar¬ 
rel  ensued,  and  the  King  in  his  turn  proposed  to  keep  the 
papal  nuncio  out  of  his  kingdom.  I  only  allude  to  this,  in 
order  to  show  that  other  matters  of  contention  were  mixed 
up  with  the  question  of  the  Inquisition.  Prince  Henry,  the 
King’s  brother,  wrote  to  Ignatius  asking  him  to  use  his 
influence  with  the  Pope  for  the  grant  of  full  inquisitorial 
powers  (May  29,  1542).  This  Ignatius  did,  with  right 
good  will,  as  appears  from  his  letters  to  Simon  Rodriguez; 
he  says:  “De  su  alteza  es  mandar  y  de  nosostros  obedecir.” 
(“It  is  for  his  Highness  to  command,  for  us  to  obey.”) 
The  King’s  aid  was  of  great  consequence  to  the  Society, 
and  Loyola  was  most  anxious  to  please  him.  But  how¬ 
ever  much  Loyola  hated  heresy  and  approved  of  the  In¬ 
quisition,  his  support  can  hardly  have  counted  for  much. 
The  desired  bull  was  issued  in  1547. 

In  Italy  the  Inquisition  was  established  in  1542.  Charles 
V  had  already  issued  a  decree  in  Naples  which  forbade 
under  pain  of  excommunication  and  death  all  dealings  with 
persons  suspected  of  heresy.  The  Church  had  its  back  to 
the  wall.  Heresy  or  questionings  and  speculations  in  the 
direction  of  heresy  had  become  rife,  not  merely  among  little 
groups  of  intellectual  persons,  such  as  the  friends  of  Juan 
Valdes,  in  Naples,  but  much  more  seriously  in  some 
northern  cities,  like  Lucca,  Modena,  and  Parma.  Cardinal 
Guidiccioni  wrote  in  alarm  of  “quanto  siano  multiplicati 
quelli  pestiferi  errori  di  questa  condannata  setta  lutherana 
in  la  nostra  cittd ”  [Lucca].  To  have  supporters  of  this 
German  heresy  appear  in  Italy  was  not  only  injury  but  in¬ 
sult.  Cardinal  Caraffa  was  “the  chief  originator”  (accord- 


350 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


ing  to  Dr.  Pastor),  die  Seele  (according  to  Dr.  Burchbell) 
of  the  plan  for  introducing  the  Inquisition.  The  Archbishop 
of  Burgos,  Juan  de  Toledo,  son  to  the  Duke  of  Alva,  advised 
it;  Caraffa  and  he  were  appointed  inquisitors  general. 
Ignatius  also  advocated  the  plan;  and  the  Society,  in  its 
natural  desire  to  magnify  his  influence,  has  spoken  as  if  his 
advocacy  had  been  of  some  consequence.  I  see  no  evidence 
to  support  such  an  idea;  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
the  Archbishop  of  Burgos  was  a  member  of  the  Dominican 
Order,  with  which  the  Jesuits  were  on  bad  terms,  and 
Caraffa  had  showed  himself  so  unfriendly  that,  as  I  have 
said,  when  Loyola  heard  that  he  was  elected  Pope,  “all  his 
bones  shook  in  his  body.”  Besides,  Paul  III  knew  his  own 
mind,  and  needed  no  counsel  in  this  matter  from  Ignatius, 
who,  I  suspect,  acted  out  of  consideration  for  the  people 
of  importance  who  desired  to  see  the  Inquisition  established 
in  Italy. 

One  more  word  and  I  shall  finish  this  chapter.  Pro¬ 
testants  have  been  long  accustomed,  out  of  charity,  to  im¬ 
pute  to  the  Jesuits  the  doctrine  that  the,  means  justifies 
the  end,  by  which  they  imply  that  the  Jesuits  justify  any 
act  of  wickedness  that  will  further  some  end  they  have  in 
view.  I  have  read  in  Catholic  sources  that  no  evidence  in 
support  of  this  charge  has  ever  been  forthcoming  against 
the  Society.  As  to  Ignatius  and  his  companions,  I  have 
found  nothing  in  word  or  deed,  to  suggest  his  or  their  ap¬ 
proval  or  advocacy  of  any  such  doctrine,  or  any  reference 
or  allusion  to  it  whatsoever.  I  will  merely  add  a  few  words 
of  exhortation  from  their  early  disciple  Father  Canisius 
to  his  congregation  in  Germany,  as  a  sample  of  what  the 
Jesuits  really  taught: 

Let  Truth  and  Simplicity  be  and  remain  our  colors,  and 
though  we  are  persecuted  and  despitefully  used,  still  we 
will  always  imitate  Him,  who  prayed  for  His  enemies,  “Lord, 
forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do.” 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 


LAST  DAYS 

His  secretary,  Ribadeneira,  says  that  the  character  of 
what  the  General  of  the  Society  should  be,  as  drawn  by 
Ignatius  in  the  Constitution,  the  Happy  Warrior  of  religion, 
is  his  own. 

Among  the  various  qualities  that  a  general  should  possess, 
the  first  is  the  closest  possible  union  with  God,  familiar 
communion  with  Him,  both  in  prayer  and  in  every  act,  in 
order  to  obtain  from  the  fount  of  all  good,  for  the  whole 
Society,  a  greater  bestowal  of  gifts  and  grace,  and  to  render 
all  the  means  he  may  employ  for  the  good  of  souls  more 
effectual.  And  in  the  second  place,  that  he  be  a  pattern 
of  all  the  virtues,  and  aid  all  the  members  of  the  Society 
to  practise  them;  but,  more  than  all,  that  the  light  of  love 
shall  shine  in  him  towards  his  neighbor  and  particularly 
towards  the  Society;  and  that  he  shall  show  a  true  humility 
that  makes  a  man  dear  to  God  and  to  his  fellow  men.  He 
must  be  free  from  all  inordinate  affections,  .  .  .  his  bearing 
and  behaviour  must  be  such,  his  speech  so  circumspect, 
that  nothing  about  him,  not  a  single  word,  but  shall  edify 
all  men,  and  in  especial  the  members  of  the  Society,  to 
which  he  must  be  mirror  and  model.  He  must  unite  recti¬ 
tude  and  necessary  severity  to  sweetness  and  benignity,  and 
never  turn  aside  from  what  he  thinks  will  be  acceptable  to 
God;  and  he  must  be  so  full  of  compassion  for  his  children, 
that  those  whom  he  rebukes  or  chastises,  in  spite  of  the 
smart,  shall  recognize  that  he  fulfills  his  office  with  justice 
and  charity  in  the  Lord.  He  must  have  strength  of  soul  and 
magnanimity,  in  order  to  bear  the  weakness  of  many 
and  to  undertake  great  things  for  the  divine  service  and  to 

351 


352 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


persevere  without  suffering  discouragement  from  the  most 
strenuous  opposition,  neither  yielding  to  entreaty  nor 
menaces  in  aught  that  touches  the  honor  of  God.  .  .  .  He 
must  have  judgment  and  good  sense,  .  .  .  the  gift  of  in¬ 
sight,  .  .  .  vigilance,  .  .  .  energy.  He  should  be  adorned 
with  all  the  virtues  ...  or,  if  some  must  of  necessity  be 
lacking,  let  it  not  be  a  shining  honesty,  nor  love  of  the 
Society,  nor  good  judgment,  nor  a  suitable  education. 

This  is  great  praise,  but  Ribadeneira  knew  him  well. 
And  he  adds: 

We  have  often  see  him  make  the  most  trifling  thing  a 
means  to  lift  himself  towards  God,  who  is  so  great  even  in 
the  least  of  His  creatures.  At  the  mere  sight  of  a  plant, 
a  blade  of  grass,  a  leaf,  a  flower,  a  fruit,  a  worm,  his  spirit 
flew  away  up  to  heaven,  and  with  a  wonderful  wisdom  he 
drew  a  moral  for  the  spiritual  life. 

It  was  complete  conformity  to  the  will  of  God,  that  gave 
him  perfect  tranquillity  of  soul.  Once  he  turned  in  the 
course  of  some  conversation  to  Lainez,  and  said : 

Tell  me,  Master  Lainez,  what  would  you  do,  were  God  to 
say  to  you,  “If  you  wish  to  die  this  minute,  I  will  free  you 
from  your  corporal  prison  and  give  you  everlasting  glory. 
But  if  you  wish  to  live  on,  I  will  not  answer  for  what  may 
happen.  I  leave  you  to  your  own  resources.  If  you  perse¬ 
vere,  I  will  reward  you;  if  not,  I  shall  pass  judgment  accord¬ 
ing  as  I  shall  find  you.”  If  God  put  that  alternative  to  you, 
but  you  knew  that  if  you  stayed  on  in  this  world  you  might 
render  Him  greater  service,  what  would  you  do?”  Lainez 
answered:  “For  my  part,  Padre,  I  admit  that  I  should 
choose  to  depart  at  once  to  enter  into  the  joy  of  my  Lord, 
and  make  sure  of  my  salvation,  a  matter  of  great  import¬ 
ance.”  “By  heaven,  not  I,”  Ignatius  said.  “If  I  could  do 
the  meanest  service  to  God,  I  should  beseech  Him  to  leave 
me  here  until  that  task  were  done;  I  should  look  to  His 
interest  more  than  to  mine.” 


LAST  DAYS 


353 


If  these  men  were  justified  in  their  conception  of  God, 
then  Lainez  was  surely  right:  “Complacuit  sibi  Dominus  in 
anima  servi  sui  Ignatii” 

During  the  last  years  Ignatius’s  health  failed.  He  had 
been  frail  and  ailing  ever  since  his  self-mortifications  at 
Manresa,  but  it  was  a  proverb  among  the  brethren  that  “as 
soon  as  there  was  any  hard  work  to  be  done  the  Padre  was 
well  again.”  He  said,  that  by  God’s  Providence  he  had 
been  subject  to  all  physical  ills,  and  therefore  had  under¬ 
standing  and  sympathy  with  pain  and  suffering:  “If  I  were 
robust  and  strong,  and  could  lead  a  life  of  great  austerity 
without  relaxation, — for  I  always  want  to  be  urging  my 
companions  on — nobody  could  follow  me,  but  by  the  lesson 
of  my  broken  body  God  teaches  me  to  be  sick  with  the  sick 
and  to  make  allowances  for  human  frailty.” 

His  constitution  was  naturally  good,  but  no  constitution 
could  stand  the  rack  and  strain  to  which  he  subjected  his. 
Privations,,  trials,  fasts  and  labors,  such  as  he  said  he  would 
not  undergo  again  for  all  the  riches  of  the  world,  brought 
physical  incapacities,  weakness  of  digestion — at  times  he 
could  take  nothing  but  fruit  and  overripe  cheese — and  other 
signs  that  the  body  had  run  its  course.  In  1551  he  sum¬ 
moned  the  principal  brothers  to  Rome  and  sought  to  re¬ 
sign,  but  all  recognized  the  impossibility  of  having  any  other 
general  during  his  lifetime.  A  few  years  later  the  end 
drew  near.  Ribadeneira  says:  “Aflame  with  desire  to  be 
with  Christ,  with  many  tears  and  violent  sobs  he  began  to 
pray  God  that  it  might  be  to  His  service  to  take  His  ser¬ 
vant  from  this  wilderness  and  lead  him  to  that  place  of 
peace,  where  with  the  freedom  that  he  longed  for  he  might 
praise  God  and  among  the  rest  of  His  elect  rejoice  in  His 
presence.” 

The  summer  of  1556  was  full  of  sorrow  for  him,  because 
His  Catholic  Majesty  Philip  II  and  Pope  Paul  IV  were  at 
war,  and  Rome  was  full  of  soldiers,  and  military  prepara¬ 
tions.  He  sought  to  avoid  the  unchristian  sights  and  sounds 
by  withdrawing  to  the  little  villa  in  the  vineyard  in  the 
Aventine,  but  foreseeing  that  his  end  was  near  at  hand,  he 
returned  to  the  house  in  town.  He  had  a  slight  fever,  and 


354 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


the  doctors  came  daily,  but  there  was  no  sign  of  serious 
illness.  I  will  begin  the  story  in  Ribadeneira’s  words : 

On  July  30th  (a  Thursday)  about  the  third  hour 
before  sundown,  he  called  Father  Juan  de  Polanco  to  him 
[Polanco  had  assisted  him  for  nine  full  years  in  every  sort 
of  business  in  the  government  of  the  Society]  and  taking 
him  apart, — Polanco  had  no  suspicion  of  what  he  wanted — 
with  the  utmost  composure  of  mind  said:  “Master  Polanco, 
the  hour  of  my  departure  from  this  world  is  at  hand.  Go 
in  my  behalf  and  kiss  His  Holiness’s  feet,  and  ask  for  his 
blessing,  and  together  with  it  a  plenary  indulgence  for  all 
my  sins;  so  that  I  may  leave  this  life  in  greater  comfort 
and  confidence;  and  tell  His  Holiness  that  if  I  (for  I  trust 
in  God’s  infinite  mercy)  shall  find  myself  on  the  Holy 
Mount  of  His  glory,  I  shall  not  forget  to  pray  for  His  Holi¬ 
ness,  as  I  have  always  done  every  time  that  I  have  felt 
constrained  to  pray  for  myself.”  At  this  point  I  will  let 
Polanco  speak  for  himself :  “I  answered,  ‘Father,  the  doc¬ 
tors  do  not  regard  your  illness  as  dangerous,  and  for  my 
part,  I  hope  that  God  will  leave  your  Reverence  for  His 
better  service  with  us  for  several  years  still.  Do  you  think 
that  you  are  as  ill  as  Lainez?’  [who  was  seriously  ill  in 
another  part  of  the  house].  ‘So  sick,’  he  answered,  ‘that 
there  is  no  more  to  do  but  die.’  I  asked  if  I  might  wait  till 
Friday,  because  I  had  to  get  some  letters  off  to  Spain  by 
the  post  for  Genoa  which  was  to  start  that  same  evening. 
He  answered:  ‘I  should  like  today  better  than  tomorrow, 
the  sooner  the  better.  However,  do  what  you  deem  best. 
I  leave  it  to  you.’  I  waited  to  find  out  if  the  doctors  be¬ 
lieved  him  in  danger,  and  sent  for  the  head  doctor,  Master 
Alexander,  and  asked  him  to  tell  me  frankly  what  he 
thought,  and  I  told  him  the  errand  I  was  charged  with  to 
the  Pope.  He  answered:  ‘I  can’t  say  anything  today;  to¬ 
morrow,  we’ll  see.’  Things  being  in  this  condition,  as 
Father  Ignatius  had  left  the  decision  to  me,  I  decided — act¬ 
ing  in  all  too  human  a  way — that  we  could  wait  till  Friday 
(the  next  day)  to  hear  the  opinion  of  the  doctors.  That 
same  Thursday  in  the  evening,  about  eight  o’clock,  Doctor 


LAST  DAYS 


355 


Madrid  and  I  took  supper  with  Father  Ignatius.  He  ate 
as  usual  and  chatted  with  us,  so  I  left  his  room  without  a 
thought  of  any  fatality.  At  daybreak  we  found  our  Father 
on  the  point  of  death.  I  ran  to  St.  Peter’s;  the  Pope  ex¬ 
pressed  great  sorrow,  and  blessed  him  with  all  possible  af¬ 
fection.  An  hour  after  sunrise,  in  the  presence  of  Dr. 
Madrid  and  Master  Andre  Desfreux,  our  Father  very  peace¬ 
fully  gave  up  his  soul  to  his  Creator. 

So  his  life  ended;  is  it  to  be  judged  a  success,  or  a  failure? 

At  the  time  of  his  death  the  Society,  as  I  have  said,  had 
colleges,  houses,  missions  almost  all  over  Catholic  Europe, 
and  in  India,  Africa  and  South  America.  In  the  course 
of  the  next  two  centuries  its  fortunes  mounted,  fluctuated 
and  fell.  It  was  suppressed  and  rose  from  its  ashes.  In 
1912  its  colleges,  houses  and  missions  were  spread  wherever 
Roman  Catholicism  extended,  in  England,  Ireland,  France, 
Germany,  Austria,  Spain,  Portugal,  Italy,  Canada,  Mexico, 
Brazil  and  so  on.  In  the  United  States  the  Order  numbered 
twenty-three  hundred  members;  there  were  six  professional 
schools  with  4363  students,  twenty-six  colleges, — Holy 
Cross  and  Boston  College  in  Massachusetts,  St.  Francis 
Xavier  and  Fordham  University  in  New  York  City,  Loyola 
College  in  Baltimore,  Georgetown  in  Washington,  others 
in  Jersey  City,  Buffalo,  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  Chicago, 
Omaha,  Milwaukee,  etc. — besides  preparatory  and  high 
schools.  In  the  whole  Society,  everywhere,  there  were  some 
sixteen  thousand  five  hundred  members.  Nevertheless,  in 
spite  of  all  this  record,  some  Protestants  will  think  that 
Loyola  was  a  failure.  They  regard  mediaeval  Christianity 
as  a  lost  cause.  And,  as  a  rule— for  it  is  easy  and  comfort¬ 
able  to  judge  of  merit  by  the  event — people  are  inclined 
to  impute  some  wrongheadedness  or  deficiency  to  the  leader 
of  a  lost  cause,  if  only  to  justify  the  condemnatory  event, 
that  has  saved  them  the  trouble  of  a  laborious  investigation. 
I  do  not  feel  very  sure  what  constitutes  a  lost  cause.  A 
state  may  crumble,  witness  the  German  Empire,  or  the 
classical  instance  of  Athens,  or  the  Roman  Empire  itself; 
but  Bismarck,  Pericles  and  Julius  Caesar  are  not  thought  of 


356 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


as  the  standard  bearers  of  lost  causes.  The  history  of  phil¬ 
osophy  is  like  a  procession  of  evening  clouds,  many-hued 
and  impermanent ;  nevertheless,  Plato  and  Plotinus  are  still 
famous  names,  and  modern  philosophers — James,  Royce, 
Bergson — although  they  seem  to  set  up  their  theories  like 
ninepins  for  newcomers  to  bowl  down,  are  not  therefore 
considered  failures,  but  rather  valiant  seekers  after  truth 
who  have  lost  their  way.  A  scientific  theory  may  be  over¬ 
thrown  by  new  discoveries,  but  Hippocrates  and  Ptolemy 
(to  cite  ancient  instances)  enjoy  great  renown;  Darwin  has 
been  criticised  and  corrected,  and  even  Newton  himself  is 
not  beyond  questioning,  nd^ra  pel  (all  is  flux) ;  humanity 
and  all  its  causes,  lost  or  gained,  are  but  little  particles  in  a 
universe  that  is  forever  shifting,  forever  breaking  up  the 
old  in  order  to  constitute  the  new.  If  a  cause  won  means 
immutability,  all  causes  must  be  lost,  or  progress  would  be 
impossible,  for  a  cause  won  would  block  the  path.  And,  in 
truth,  the  words  lost  cause  have  little  meaning.  “Thou 
fool,  that  which  thou  sowest  is  not  quickened,  except  it  die.” 
Every  action  is  a  seed.  Defeats  as  well  as  victories  are 
integral  factors  in  building  the  future. 

Did  Loyola  achieve  success,  or  did  he  go  down  to  failure? 
But  I  do  not  ask  the  question  to  answer  it  myself;  I  will 
do  no  more  than  suggest  two  consequences  of  his  life  and 
doctrine.  The  first  is  a  deduction  to  be  drawn  from  a  pas¬ 
sage  in  the  Life  of  Saint  Ignatius  by  Pere  Bartoli,  S.J.,  the 
second  a  deduction  from  a  passage  in  Les  Relations  des 
Jesuites  dans  la  Nouvelle  France.  Of  Bartoli’s  book  the 
judicious  and  reasonable  Astrain  says:  “Although  Bartoli 
lived  a  hundred  years  after  Saint  Ignatius,  nevertheless,  as 
he  had  at  his  disposition  all  the  documents  in  the  general 
archives  of  the  Society,  he  was  able  to  write  a  biography  of 
the  Saint  that,  in  wealth  of  facts  and  accuracy  of  informa¬ 
tion,  surpasses  all  the  others  written  in  that  century.” 
Bartoli  devotes  the  sixth  book  of  his  work  to  the  miracles 
wrought  by  Loyola’s  intercession  or  influence.  Among  other 
stories  is  the  following: 

A  priest  used  to  preach  at  Arbois,  in  Burgundy,  not  far 
from  Dole.  This  priest  was  invited  one  day  to  dine  with 


LAST  DAYS 


357 


Dr.  Gillabos,  a  good,  intelligent  man,  who  came  out  with 
a  great  panegyric  upon  the  holiness  and  miracles  of  Saint 
Ignatius.  The  preacher  did  not  like  the  panegyric;  he 
burst  out  laughing  and  said,  with  a  disdainful  and  con¬ 
temptuous  air,  that  the  Founder  of  the  Jesuits,  if  he  used 
all  his  influence,  might  perhaps  cure  a  toothache,  but  that 
he  could  not  do  more.  This  pleasantry,  quite  out  of  place 
in  a  priest,  scandalized  the  company  and  cast  a  damper 
on  the  subsequent  conversation;  for  the  family  entertained 
a  great  devotion  to  Saint  Ignatius.  This  was  on  the  Mon¬ 
day  before  mid-Lent.  Out  of  regard  for  the  good  of  the 
people  thereabouts,  God  postponed  His  vengeance;  and 
the  preacher  was  able  to  finish  his  course  of  sermons.  On 
Easter  Monday  he  was  again  invited  by  the  same  doctor. 
This  time  he  received  the  just  reward  for  his  improper 
pleasantry.  He  was  holding  a  glass  of  wine  in  his  hand, 
and  was  about  to  carry  it  to  his  lips,  when  he  suddenly  be¬ 
gan  to  tremble  and  shriek  that  his  teeth  were  being  pulled 
out  and  that  he  could  not  open  his  mouth.  And  in  fact  his 
jaws  were  so  locked  that  he  could  not  utter  a  word;  all  he 
could  do  was  to  roar  in  despair.  Then  came  a  fit  of  terror, 
convulsions,  and  such  transports  of  madness  that  five  or 
six  men  could  hardly  hold  him  down.  All  the  physicians 
roundabout  were  called  in;  but  as  the  illness  came  from 
heaven,  the  art  of  man  could  do  nothing.  The  wretch  lived 
on  for  three  days  in  these  torments, — a  severe  lesson  on 
the  respect  due  to  saints.  At  the  end  of  the  three  days  he 
died  miserably,  without  being  able  to  say  a  single  word, 
even  of  repentance. 

To  have  helped  produce,  or  render  possible,  such  credu¬ 
lity  in  Pere  Bartoli,  or  anybody  else,  as  to  believe  or 
tell  so  silly  a  story,  is  surely  evidence  of  failure. 

My  second  passage  concerns  Father  Brebeuf,  the  Norman 
gentleman  whom  Francis  Parkman,  through  his  book  The 
Jesuits  in  North  America,  introduced  to  Protestant  readers. 
There  is  enough  to  do  honor  to  the  Society  in  the  mere 
record  of  Brebeuf’s  hardships  from  the  time  he  left  Samuel 
de  Champlain  at  Quebec  until  reaching  a  village  of  the 
Hurons, — to  quote  his  own  words — “Where  poor  Estienne 


358 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Brule  had  been  barbarously  and  treacherously  murdered, 
which  made  me  think  that  some  day  we  might  be  treated 
in  the  same  manner,  and  to  wish  that  at  least  it  might  be 
while  pursuing  the  glory  of  Our  Lord.”  Some  three  years 
later,  that  day  seemed  close  at  hand.  In  a  letter  to  his 
Superior,  he  writes: 

Mon.  R.  Pere,  Nous  sommes  peut-estre  sur  le  point  de 
respandre  notre  sang,  et  d’immoler  nos  vies  pour  le  service 
de  nostre  bon  Maistre  Jesus-Christ.  It  seems  that  His 
goodness  is  willing  to  accept  this  sacrifice  from  me  in  expia¬ 
tion  of  my  great  and  numberless  sins,  and  to  crown  now 
the  past  services  and  burning  desires  of  all  the  Fathers  here. 
.  .  .  En  tout,  sa  sainte  volonte  soit  faite;  s’il  veut  que  des 
cestre  heure  nous  mourions,  6  la  bonne  heure  pour  nous! 

But  the  day  did  not  come  for  eleven  years,  until  almost 
the  very  time  that  Pere  Bartoli  was  writing  the  miraculous 
story,  that  I  have  just  quoted.  Les  Relations  des  Jesuites 
for  the  year  1649,  Chapter  IV,  “De  Vheureuse  mort  du  P. 
Jean  de  Brebeuf,”  tells  the  story  of  his  capture  and  torture 
by  the  Iroquois.  It  is  too  terrible  to  recount.  Parkman 
says: 

Thus  died  Jean  de  Brebeuf,  the  founder  of  the  Huron  mis¬ 
sion,  its  truest  hero  and  its  greatest  martyr.  He  came  of  a 
noble  race, — the  same,  it  is  said,  from  which  sprang  the 
English  Earls  of  Arundel;  but  never  had  the  mailed  barons 
of  his  line  confronted  a  fate  so  appalling,  with  so  prodigious 
a  constancy.  To  the  last  he  refused  to  flinch,  and  “his  death 
was  the  astonishment  of  his  murderers.” 

Heroism,  scarcely  if  at  all  inferior,  was  shown  by  many 
another  member  of  the  Society  in  the  endeavor  to  save  the 
souls  of  Indians  in  la  Nouvelle  France.  To  have  helped 
produce,  or  render  possible,  such  courage  in  Pere  Brebeuf 
and  many,  many  others,  as  to  brave  horrors  unspeakable 
for  the  greater  glory  of  God,  is  surely  triumphant  success. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 


EPILOGUE 

Such,  then,  are  the  usual  charges  that  are  brought  up  by 
ill-informed  persons  who  are  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
Order  of  Jesus.  I  repeat :  the  doctrine  that  the  end  justifies 
the  means  was  devised  for  use  in  party  warfare  at  some 
period  or  other  after  Loyola’s  death;  as  a  weapon  of  assault, 
it  can  scarcely  be  praised  too  highly,  it  is  insulting,  harmful, 
hard  to  refute  and  easy  to  remember.  Perhaps  no  phrase 
ever  carried  more  mud  that  sticks.  It  so  happens,  however, 
that  the  maxim,  at  least  as  a  rule  of  conduct,  is  far  older 
than  the  Jesuits,  and  has  been  said  to  obtain,  now  and  again, 
with  Secretaries  of  State,  Ministers  of  War,  or  Captains  of 
Industry,  in  countries  which  are  not  under  Jesuit  control. 
With  establishing  the  Inquisition  in  Italy  and  in  Portugal, 
Ignatius  had  but  little  to  do,  with  establishing  it  in  Spain, 
nothing. 

As  to  the  doctrine  of  obedience,  to  hear  some  Protestant 
critics  you  might  almost  suppose  it  to  be  a  diabolical  inven¬ 
tion  of  Loyola’s.  It  is,  of  course,  as  essential  in  an  ecclesias¬ 
tical  army  as  on  board  ship,  or  on  the  parade  ground,  or  on 
the  football  field,  or  in  the  trenches.  It  is  said  of  Phillips 
Brooks, — “no  ancient  Roman,  pagan  or  Christian,  ever  as¬ 
serted  more  strongly  the  claim  of  obedience  to  be  the  highest 
virtue.”  In  addition  to  the  necessity  of  obedience  in  order 
to  secure  the  united  action  among  any  body  of  men  in  the 
accomplishment  of  any  purpose,  it  had  always  been  the  fav¬ 
orite  mediaeval  method  of  teaching  humility.  You  will  find 
the  simile  of  the  dead  body  as  the  type  of  perfect  obedience 
set  forth  with  elaboration  by  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  His 
biographers,  Thomas  of  Celano,  in  both  the  First  and  Sec¬ 
ond  Life ,  and  the  Three  Companions,  lay  special  emphasis 
upon  his  insistence  on  this  point. 

359 


360 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Some  people  may  regard  with  disfavor  Loyola’s  habit  of 
worship,  for  instance  his  devotion  to  the  Eucharist.  He 
wTas  a  child  of  the  middle  ages,  and  passionately  accepted 
its  elementary  creed.  In  our  world  of  Protestantism  and 
agnosticism  we  think  of  that  mediaeval  creed  as  over  and 
done  with ;  but  that  is  because  we  do  not  travel  beyond  the 
bounds  of  our  own  religious  sympathies.  These  mediaeval 
Christian  beliefs,  as  we  call  them,  still  justify  themselves 
by  the  service  they  render  to  individual  souls.  Newman 
and  Manning  are  instances  to  prove  this.  The  great  school¬ 
master,  Dr.  Coit,  wrote : 

I  think  the  simple  attendance  on  the  Blessed  Sacrament, 
week  by  week,  and  forming  the  habit  of  careful  preparation 
and  frequent  reception,  remembering  into  Whose  presence 
we  come,  and  for  what  we  hang  upon  His  grace,  will  do  more 
for  stable  peace  and  true  growth  in  moral  strength  than  any 
other  means  whatever. 

And  Phillips  Brooks  speaks  of  this  Sacrament  as  “the 
rallying-place  for  all  the  good  activity  and  worthy  hopes  of 
man.”  To  Ignatius  partaking  of  the  Eucharist  was  eating 
the  bread  of  spiritual  life. 

In  addition  to  these  three  criticisms  there  is  a  fourth, 
which  is  usually  thought,  but  taken  so  much  for  granted  as 
not  often  to  be  specifically  directed  against  Ignatius;  or 
rather  it  is  crowded  out  by  the  more  clamorous  protests 
against  “The  end  justifies  the  means”  and  his  supposed  con¬ 
nection  with  the  Inquisition.  This  fourth  criticism  con¬ 
cerns  the  practice  of  asceticism,  which  Loyola  enjoined  and 
exemplified  to  so  extreme  a  degree.  Hunger,  thirst,  dirt, 
scourgings,  an  emaciated,  maltreated  body,  scarred  with 
welts,  are  not  merely  unattractive  to  us,  they  are  odious. 
We  are  all  agreed  that  comfort  is  a  great  good;  we  usually 
act  as  if  it  were  our  chief  good,  and  when  some  rude  force 
shatters  it,  our  very  bowels  cry  out  against  the  sacrilege. 
There  have  always  been  a  few  men — bigots  or  fanatics  we 
call  them — who  have  felt  an  imperious  compulsion  to  ill- 
treat  the  flesh.  The  Cynics  felt  this;  the  hermits  of  the 


EPILOGUE 


361 


Thebaid  much  more  so;  also  St.  Francis  and  a  long  line  of 
mediaeval  saints.  The  usual  explanation  of  this  disregard 
of  what  we  deem  our  great  good,  is  that  the  primitive  fear 
of  a  cruel  Power  constrains  timorous  men  to  seek  to  placate 
it  by  torturing  themselves.  Let  us  not  forget  that  this 
superstition  is  found  in  company  with  very  noble  human 
qualities.  Epictetus  says  that  the  true  Cynic  is  free  from 
anger,  envy,  resentment,  that  his  conscience  and  his  life  are 
pure,  that  he  loves  modesty,  and  is  a  friend  worthy  of  the 
gods.  St.  Anthony  of  the  Desert  was  pure  in  heart,  sober 
in  judgment,  equable  in  spirit,  full  of  courtesy,  tender  to  the 
sorrowful;  “Seek  ye  wisdom  (he  said),  chastity,  justice,  vir¬ 
tue,  watchfulness,  care  of  the  poor,  hospitality,  and  a  mind 
that  overcomes  anger.”  The  charm  of  St.  Francis’s  char¬ 
acter  is  known  to  everybody.  To  maltreat  oneself  seems,  in 
these  classes  of  men,  to  be  correlated  with  kindness  to  one’s 
neighbor.  But  it  is  not  on  behalf  of  any  such  correlation 
that  I  wish  to  argue  here.  This  compelling  need  of  self¬ 
mortification,  whether  or  not  a  relic  of  primitive  supersti¬ 
tions,  is  still  dominant  with  some  men,  and  as  I  think,  is  a 
trait  of  great  social  value. 

I  will  quote  a  French  gentleman,  Charles  Foucauld,  who 
died  but  a  few  years  ago.  After  his  training  as  an  officer 
at  Saint-Cyr,  he  served  in  Algiers  as  a  chasseur  d’Ajrique, 
distinguished  himself  as  a  daring  explorer  in  Morocco, 
then  took  to  religion,  plunged,  as  it  were,  into  mediaeval 
Christianity,  and  lived  all  the  rest  of  his  life  in  the  desert, 
partly  in  Syria,  mostly  in  Sahara,  hermit,  priest,  mis¬ 
sionary  and  scholar.  His  self-mortification  was  extreme; 
he  fasted,  he  prayed,  he  kept  vigils,  he  adored  the  Holy 
Sacrament,  he  trampled  self-indulgence,  bodily  appetites, 
human  affections,  under  his  feet.  He  was  ravished  by  the 
passion  of  self-sacrifice.  He  rejoiced  in  suffering.  With  a 
fervor,  equal  to  Loyola’s,  he  writes  of  parting  from  dearly 
beloved  friends  as  a  great  good, 

a  good  that  gives  us  the  chance  to  offer  a  sacrifice  to  the 
good  Lord,  and  it  is  indeed  the  greatest  good,  the  only  real 
good  that  there  is  in  life,  one  that  unites  us  closest  to  our 


362 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Blessed  Saviour.  When  one  loves,  what  is  there  so  sweet 
as  to  give  something  to  Him  one  loves,  most  of  all  to  give 
some  dearly  treasured  possession,  to  suffer  for  love  of  Him, 
to  give  Him  all  one’s  heart’s  blood?  .  .  . 

And  what  follows  is  from  a  letter  to  a  priest  written  just 
after  Pere  Foucauld  has  visited  the  Colosseum  with  its 
memories  of  Christian  martyrs : 

0  Father,  how  dearly  we  ought  to  love !  How  much  must 
we,  you  and  I,  try  to  love  the  Divine  Spouse  of  our  Souls! 
If  our  souls  are  able  to  love  with  passion,  and  they  are,  let 
us  drown  ourselves  in  love  of  Him!  .  .  .  Let  this  flower, 
that  I  enclose,  picked  in  the  Colosseum,  remind  you  as  it 
does  me  what  the  Saints  suffered,  and  what  we  ought  to  wish 
to  suffer.  ...  It  is  our  advantage  over  the  angels!  ...  At 
least  we  have  tears,  sufferings,  perhaps  even,  if  God  please, 
blood  to  offer  to  Our  Lord,  to  mingle  with  His  tears,  His 
sufferings,  and  His  blood ! 

And  in  order  to  reinforce  my  suggestion  that  this  medi¬ 
aeval  Christianity  still  contains  a  power  of  conferring  per¬ 
manent  and  abiding  consolation  upon  poor,  suffering  human 
nature,  I  quote  again  from  his  diary: 

How  good  Thou  art,  0  God,  to  have  broken  all  that  I  had, 
to  have  crushed  and  crumbled  all  that  would  have  hindered 
me  from  belonging  wholly  to  Thee!  To  grant  me  this  pro¬ 
found  sense  of  the  vanity  and  unreality  of  a  worldly  life, 
this  sense  of  the  vast  distance  that  separates  the  perfect  life 
of  the  gospels  from  a  life  in  the  world,  .  .  .  and  this  tender, 
ever  increasing  love  for  you,  Lord  Jesus,  this  taste  for 
prayer,  this  faith  in  your  word,  this  assurance  of  the  duty  of 
charity,  this  desire  to  follow  you.  ...  At  this  moment  I 
am  in  great  peace.  It  will  last  as  long  as  Jesus  pleases.  I 
have  the  Holy  Sacrament,  and  love  of  Jesus.  Others  have 
the  earth;  I  have  God.  When  I  am  downcast,  here  is  my 
recipe:  I  recite  the  glorious  mysteries  of  the  rosary,  and 
say  to  myself,  “What  does  it  matter  after  all  that  I  am 


EPILOGUE 


363 


miserable,  and  that  no  good  thing  I  wish  for  comes  to  pass? 
That  does  not  hinder  my  beloved  Jesus  who  wishes  the  good 
a  thousand  times  more  than  I,  from  being  happy,  eternally 
and  infinitely  happy.” 

Do  we  not  utter  idle  words  when  we  say  that  a  creed 
which  rouses  a  man  to  this  pitch  of  passion  and  love,  is  a 
lost  cause?  But  I  merely  refer  by  way  of  parenthesis  to 
this  union  of  passion  with  ascetism,  throwing  out  the  sug¬ 
gestion  that  any  cruelty  of  self-mortification  is  more  than 
repaid  by  the  power  of  loving, — quand  on  aime,  qu’est-ce 
qu’il  y  a  de  plus  doux  que  de  souffrir  pour  V amour  de  ce 
qu’on  aime — and  pass  on  to  my  point,  which  is  that  we, 
mankind,  civilization,  the  interests  of  hearth  and  home, 
need  these  fanatical  excesses  in  order  to  counterbalance  the 
meanness,  the  grossness,  the  bestiality  that  hangs  about  the 
neck  of  poor  human  nature.  Aristotle's  ne  quid  nimis  is 
perhaps  the  wisest  goal  for  stumbling  men,  but  how  fares 
the  golden  mean  when  the  balance  on  one  side  is  piled  high, 
if  the  balance  at  the  other  end  is  to  hang  empty? 
Say  that  these  fasts,  living, — no,  not  living  but  sus¬ 
taining  life, — on  a  few  dates  or  a  handful  of  rice,  as 
Pere  Foucauld  did,  these  vigils  that  fill  the  exhausted 
brain  with  the  hideous  phantasms  of  insomnia,  these  mace¬ 
rations  that  slice  the  skin,  daub  it  with  blood,  wrench  the 
muscles  and  twist  the  bones  awry,  and  all  the  abstinences, 
punishments,  indignities  and  cruelties  that  religious  fanatics 
have  inflicted  upon  their  bodies — say  that  these  are 
monstrous,  that  they  disgust  and  horrify  you;  then  look  into 
the  slums  of  some  great  city,  see  the  prostitutes  herded 
together,  look  into  opium  joints  and  gin  hells,  look  into  the 
rubber  forests  of  Peru  or  the  Congo,  look  at  the  lynching  of 
negroes,  look  at  Germans,  or  drunken  soldiers  of  any  other 
nation,  sacking  a  town,  and  reckon  up  the  horrors  that  are 
heaped  mountain-high,  and  then  ask  yourself,  if  it  is  not  a 
comfort,  a  tonic,  a  source  of  hope  and  strength,  to  find  men 
who  treat  their  own  flesh  as  others  treat  slaves  and  captives, 
who  trample  lust  and  appetite  under  foot,  who  rejoice  in  the 
purification  of  suffering?  If  humanity  is  to  set  before  its 


364 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


eyes  the  golden  mean,  it  will  not  attain  it  if  the  lovers  of 
good  do  no  more  than  enroll  themselves  in  the  sect  of  Epi¬ 
curus;  some  may  do  so,  but  not  all,  or  the  game  is  lost.  As 
long  as  we  have  intemperance  and  excess  at  one  extreme,  so 
long  we  must  have  intemperance  and  excess  at  the  other. 
Comfortable  pulpits,  prosperous  clergymen,  professors  of 
ethics,  cannot  kindle  the  flame  that  shall  burn  the  dross  out 
of  our  hearts;  there  must  be  men  like  Pere  Foucauld  to  lead 
a  hermit’s  life  of  passionate  protest  against  human  brutality, 
and  like  Ignatius  Loyola  with  the  courage  to  acquire  that 
spiritual  strength  that  can  only  be  got  from  self-mortifica¬ 
tion,  and  the  will  to  put  it  to  daily  use  in  the  service  of 
common  men.  At  any  rate  that  is  the  argument;  and  I 
take  it  that  the  reason  why  Christianity  is  losing  its  influ¬ 
ence  more  and  more,  is  just  because  its  belief  in  its  own 
tenets  is  too  feeble  to  kindle  the  passionate  conviction  of  a 
Loyola  or  a  Pere  Foucauld. 

There  is  one  thing  more  and  I  have  done.  We  almost 
always  think  of  Loyola,  or  Luther,  or  Calvin,  as  a  doughty 
fighter  for  his  particular  creed.  Let  us  drop,  for  the  mo¬ 
ment,  their  disagreements  and  divisions,  and  look  upon  them 
all  as  striving,  each  in  his  own  mistaken  way,  to  achieve  one 
common  end.  All  were  at  one  in  the  conviction  that  re¬ 
ligion  is  of  the  first  importance  for  man.  But  before  pro¬ 
ceeding  further,  I  suppose  that  I  should  attempt  some 
definition  of  the  meaning  that  I  attach  to  the  word  religion 
or  religious.  I  take  it  that  religious  men  are  at  work  on  the 
creation,  or  exposition,  of  some  wide  home  of  thought,  where 
imagination  and  hope  may  wander  free.  The  function  of 
poets  may  serve  to  explain  what  I  mean ;  and  the  comparison 
cannot  be  looked  upon  as  irreverent,  for  I  have  in  mind  the 
spacious  temple  of  thought  built,  or  rather  opened  up  and 
out  like  a  celestial  canopy,  by  ^Eschylus,  Plato,  Dante, 
Shakespeare,  Milton,  Shelley  and  the  rest,  in  which  weary 
men,  discouraged,  vexed,  sick  at  heart,  vanquished  or  ship¬ 
wrecked  on  the  high  seas  of  life,  may  wander  in  peace,  de¬ 
light  and  reverence,  undisturbed  by  the  consciousness  of  self, 
with  its  unloveliness,  its  weaknesses,  blemishes  and  inade¬ 
quacies  and  all  the  noisy  insistence  of  the  appetites  and 


EPILOGUE 


365 


ambitions  that  animate  physical  life.  In  a  similar  fashion, 
religious  men, — when  wisely  minded,  working  in  unison  with 
the  poets,  or,  when  wayward,  trying  to  undo  what  poets 
have  done, — create  or  reveal  an  ample  tabernacle,  a  region, 
a  heaven,  of  etherial  substance,  where  ideas  of  goodness, 
beauty  and  love  have  power  to  compel  devotion  and  self¬ 
dedication. 

Religion,  then,  is  the  creation,  or  revelation,  of  this 
temple,  canopy,  or  garden  of  thought.  To  be  aware  of  this 
expanse  is  faith.  After  this  uncircumscribed  region  has  been 
discovered,  framed,  or  flung  toward  heaven,  and  like  a 
celestial  sphere  overarches  poor  human  existence,  comes  the 
task  of  theology.  That  task  is  to  give  to  this  etherial  region 
the  semblance  of  reality,  that  is,  to  touch  it  with  signs  of 
familiarity,  colors  of  the  known,  marks  of  the  recognizable, 
and  thereby  give  plausible  justification  to  the  assurances  of 
faith.  The  task  was  difficult;  it  was  necessary  to  avoid  the 
fatal  faults  of  abstraction,  of  mathematical  coldness,  of  the 
nihilism  of  the  absolute,  and  therefore  theology  has  usually 
resorted  to  the  device  of  transferring  human  matters  up 
bodily  into  this  austere  and  beautiful  domain;  and  in  its 
overeagerness,  has  done  so  too  much,  at  least  more  than  we 
today  can  approve,  creating  human  deities,  as  with  the 
pagans,  that  were  grossly  human,  or  as  with  Semitic  peoples 
egotistically  national,  or  as  with  the  Christians,  transferring 
thither  the  type  of  human  perfection,  and  asserting  that 
there  humanity  made  perfect  possesses  infinite  power.  No 
doubt  the  task  of  giving  a  semblance  of  reality  to  the  House 
of  Hope  is  difficult.  On  one  hand  the  grossness  of  human 
nature  seems  to  convert  the  bare  idea  of  it  into  irony,  into 
a  sort  of  Voltairian  jeu  d! esprit ;  on  the  other,  the  increasing 
knowledge,  as  we  call  it,  of  the  stuff  or  energy  that  com¬ 
poses  the  physical  universe  round  about  us,  tends  to  divert 
our  minds  from  what  men  of  science  say  are  our  Platonic 
dreams.  But  religion  is  founded  on  a  deep  laid  foundation. 
The  mystical  rests  upon  the  deepest  mystery,  the  fact  of 
consciousness.  Matter  and  mind  are  incommensurable ;  and 
even  if  it  should  come  to  pass  that  the  nature  and  course  of 
matter — or  whatever  the  generic  term  is  that  should  be 


366 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


applied  to  the  causes  of  sensation — be  discovered  and 
charted  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt,  still  the  human  mind 
will  always  be  free  to  feel  that  certainty  is  denied  to  it,  and 
therefore  that  nothing,  not  even  its  highest  dream,  is  im¬ 
possible,  however  unlikely. 

This  task  of  quickening  faith  was,  as  I  say,  difficult,  and 
of  course  theology  has  made  mistakes.  Perhaps  it  should 
have  been  more  discreet  in  talking  as  much  as  it  has  done 
about  truth.  But  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  any  re¬ 
ligious  doctrine  that  confined  itself  to  probabilities,  or 
hopes,  or  poetry,  would  have  been  acceptable  to  more  than 
a  handful.  We  poor  human  beings  are  oppressed  with  the 
fleetingness  of  life,  with  the  series  of  banishments  from 
Gardens  of  Eden, — from  youth,  from  health,  from  affection, 
— banishments  that  follow  on  one  another’s  heels;  we  are 
oppressed  and  giddy  with  the  changes  that  dance  about  us, 
A  philosopher  may  be  content  to  say:  “There  is  but  one 
reality — our  present  life,  which  carries  in  it  its  history,  and 
is  making  itself,”  but  the  ordinary  man  cries  out  for  some¬ 
thing  holy. 

It  is  with  this  aspect  of  his  life  that  I  wish  to  take  leave 
of  Ignatius  Loyola,  not  as  a  champion  of  Roman  Catholi¬ 
cism,  not  as  an  enemy  to  pagans  or  a  hammer  of  heretics, 
but  as  a  husbandman  in  the  vineyard  of  the  true  God, — as  a 
passionate  believer  in  holiness.  His  dominating  purpose  all 
his  life  was  to  save  his  soul,  and  the  soul  of  his  neighbor; 
and  what  is  a  man’s  soul,  but  the  turning  away  from  the 
base,  the  mean,  the  brutal,  the  bestial,  the  inheritance  of  an 
almost  infinite  animal  existence,  and  a  reaching  out  toward 
ideas  of  holiness.  It  was  for  this  end  that  Jesus  Christ  lived 
his  life  and  died,  that  men  might  believe  in  holiness;  and 
Ignatius  Loyola,  with  his  faults,  his  inadequate  comprehen¬ 
sion,  his  bigotry,  his  blindness,  strove  with  all  his  might  to 
be  a  faithful  servant  of  Christ,  his  Master. 

I  will  grant  that  Loyola  had  ideas  of  religion,  ideas  of 
God,  which  time  and  knowledge  have  rendered  inadequate 
and  unsatisfactory  to  hungry,  mystical  souls  today,  that  his 
conception  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  lacks  the  poetry 
that  alone  makes  such  a  Kingdom  lovable,  that  the  modes 


EPILOGUE 


367 


in  which  he  sought  to  imitate  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  have 
little  or  no  resemblance  to  the  story  of  the  Gospels,  that  the 
means  he  employed  were  backward  and  mistaken;  I  will 
grant  that  what  he  did  would  often  have  been  better  left 
undone;  and  yet  with  all  these  concessions,  there  are  few 
such  heroic  figures  in  history.  He  and  his  disciples  have  not 
conferred  the  benefits  they  meant  to  confer,  but  others  that 
they  knew  not  of,  perhaps  no  whit  less  valuable. 


See!  In  the  rocks  of  the  world 
Marches  the  host  of  mankind, 

A  feeble,  wavering  line. 

Where  are  they  tending? — A  God 
Marshalkd  them,  gave  them  their  goal. — 
Ah,  but  the  way  is  so  long! 

Years  they  have  been  in  the  wild! 

Sore  thirst  plagues  them,  the  rocks, 
Rising  all  round,  overawe; 

Factions  divide  them,  their  host 
Threatens  to  break,  to  dissolve. — 

Ah,  keep,  keep  them  combined! 

Else,  of  the  myriads  who  fill 
That  army,  not  one  shall  arrive; 

Sole  they  shall  stray;  on  the  rocks 
Batter  for  ever  in  vain, 

Die  one  by  one  in  the  waste. 

Then,  in  such  hour  of  need 
Of  your  fainting,  dispirited  race, 

Ye,  like  angels,  appear, 

Radiant  with  ardour  divine 
Beacons  of  hope,  ye  appear! 

Languor  is  not  in  your  heart, 
Weakness  is  not  in  your  word, 
Weariness  not  on  your  brow. 

Ye  alight  in  our  van!  at  your  voice, 
Pain,  despair,  flee  away. 

•  •  • 

Thou  wouldst  not  alone 
Be  saved,  my  father! 

Semper  immenso  hominum  salutis  desiderio  exarsit. 


APPENDIX 


t 


APPENDIX 


A 

Sources:  almost  all  these  are  published  in  Monumenta  Societatis 
Jesu,  Madrid. 

Acta  8.  Ignatii:  dictated  in  1553  and  1555  by  Ignatius  to  Father 
Luis  Gonzalez  de  Camara.  In  volume  entitled  Ignatio  de  Loyola , 
Scripta  I. 

Epistola  P.  Lainii  de  S.  Ignatio:  written  by  Lainez  to  Polanco 
June  17,  1547.  In  volume  last  mentioned. 

Memoriale  P.  Consalvti  de  Camara  de  8.  Ignatio:  notes  and  anec¬ 
dotes  of  Gonzalez  (1573).  Same  volume. 

De  Actis  8.  Ignatii  a  Ribadeneira :  a  collection  of  sayings,  anecdotes, 
etc.  Date  uncertain,  probably  prior  to  1572.  Same  volume. 

Dicta  et  Facta  S.  Ignatii  a  P.  Ribadeneira  collecta. 

De  ratione  8.  Ignatii  in  gubernando ,  by  same. 

Acta  qucedam  8.  Ignatii  a  P .  Natali. 

Dictamina  8.  Ignatii  a  P.  Lancicio  collecta. 

Memorabilia  de  8.  Ignatio  a  P.  Lancicio  collecta:  these  are  collec¬ 
tions  of  anecdotes,  memorabilia,  etc.  Same  volume. 

Vita  Ignatii  Loyolce  et  rerum  8ocietatis  Jesu  Historia ;  by  Joannes 
Alphonsus  de  Polanco,  who  was  Loyola’s  Secretary  1547-1556. 
Volume  I,  contains  the  life. 

Vida  del  P.  Ignacio  de  Loyola ,  fundador  de  la  Compania  de  Jesus , 
by  Pedro  de  Kibadeneira,  a  disciple  who  was  first  acquainted 
with  Ignatius  in  1540,  and  very  intimate  from  1552  to  1555. 
The  first  edition  was  in  Latin  in  1572;  the  best  is  in  a  French 
translation  by  P.  Ch.  Clair,  S.J.,  furnished  with  excellent  notes. 
(Paris,  1891.) 

Epistolce  et  Instructions :  in  twelve  volumes,  these  are  letters  from 
1536  to  his  death. 

Epistolce  Mixtce:  in  five  volumes,  these  are  letters  from  members  of 
the  Society  to  Loyola. 

Litterce  quadrimestres :  in  four  volumes,  these  are  business  letters 
written  every  four  months  to  Loyola  by  provincials  and  others, 
from  1546  to  1556. 

Spiritual  Exercises  of  Saint  Ignatius.  I  have  used  an  English 
translation  entitled,  The  Text  of  the  Spiritual  Exercises  of  Saint 
Ignatius  translated  from  the  original  Spanish,  fourth  edition 
revised,  London,  1913. 


371 


372  IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 

Constitution's  Societatis  Jesu.  I  have  used  a  copy,  Latin  and  French, 
entitled  Les  Constitutions  des  Jesuites,  Paris,  1843. 

De  Origine  et  Progressu  Societatis  Jesu :  this  is  an  account  by 
Father  Simon  Rodriguez,  one  of  the  First  Fathers  (1577). 
Volume  entitled  Epistolce  Paschasii  Bro'eti  et  Aliorum. 

Memoriale  Beati  Petri  Fabri:  this  is  a  sort  of  pious  diary  composed 
by  Pierre  Lefevre  (Favre  or  Faber,  for  his  name  is  spelt  in  vari¬ 
ous  ways),  one  of  the  First  Fathers  (1542-1546).  Volume  entitled 
Fabri  Monumenta. 

Epistolce  P.  Lainii:  These  are  letters  written  by  Lainez,  one  of  the 
First  Fathers.  Volume  entitled  Lainii  Monumenta. 

Epistolce  P.  Salmeronis :  These  are  letters  written  by  Salmeron, 
also  one  of  the  First  Fathers. 

Epistolce  Paschasii  Bro'eti,  Claudii  Jaji,  Joannis  Codurii  et  Simonis 
Rodericii.  These  are  four  of  the  First  Fathers. 

Fabri  Monumenta:  Letters  and  Memoriale  of  Pierre  Lefevre,  one  of 
the  First  Fathers. 

Bobadillce  Monumenta:  These  are  letters  of  Bobadilla,  one  of  the 
First  Fathers. 

Epistolce  P.  Nadal.  He  was  one  of  the  early  disciples,  having  known 
Loyola  familiarly  in  Paris  in  1535. 

Monumenta  Xaveriana:  Letters  of  Xavier’s,  and  a  life  by  P.  Ales¬ 
sandro  Valignano. 


Later  Biographies 

De  Vita  et  Moribus  Ignatii  Loyolce:  Giovanni  Pietro  Maffei,  S.J. 
(1585). 

Historia  Societatis  Jesu,  Pars  Prima:  Nicolaus  Orlandini,  S.J. 
(1598-1606). 

Della  vita  e  delV  Istituto  di  S.  Ignazio:  Daniele  Bartoli,  S.J.  (1650). 
Vie  de  Saint  Ignace:  Dominique  Bouhours,  S.J.  (1679). 

Acta  Sanctorum,  Julii,  Tom  VII,  Die  trigesima  prima  (1731). 
Saint  Ignace  de  Loyola:  Henri  Joly. 

Ignatius  Loyola:  Stewart  Rose  (Caroline  Erskine  Stewart,  Lady 
Buchan)  (1870). 

Saint  Ignatius  Loyola:  Francis  Thompson  (1910). 

Saint  Ignace  de  Loyola:  G.  Desdevises  du  Dezert,  Revue  Eispanique, 
Vol.  34  (June,  1915). 

Saint  Ignatius  Loyola:  John  Hungerford  Pollen,  S.J.  (1922). 

Storia  della  Compagnia  di  Gesu  in  Italia:  Tacchi  Venturi,  S.J.  (Vol. 
I,  1910,  Vol.  II,  1922). 

Loyola’s  life  is  narrated  in  Vol.  II,  which  contains  a  list  of 
authorities,  pp.  xlix-lx.  This  work  is  scholarly,  accurate  and 
just. 


APPENDIX  373 

Historia  de  la  Compania  de  Jesus  en  la  Asistencia  de  Espana  (Yol. 
I,  1902)  :  Father  Antonio  Astrain,  S.J. 

This  is  a  scholarly,  moderate,  and,  in  all  respects  that  I  can 
judge,  excellent  work,  in  several  large  volumes.  The  first  volume 
is  given  up  to  a  narrative  of  Loyola’s  career  and  of  the  doings 
of  the  Society  in  his  lifetime.  A  very  full  bibliography  concern¬ 
ing  matters,  both  printed  and  not,  will  be  found  in  Volume  I, 
pp.  xiii-xlv. 


APPENDIX 


B 

Authorities  for  specific  statements  in  the  text,  translations  of  pas¬ 
sages  in  a  foreign  language,  etc. 

Preface 

page  LINE 

Guizot,  quoted:  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  en  Europe, 

p.  347  .  IX  2 

Lord  Acton,  quoted:  Lectures  on  Modern  History,  p.  114  IX  20 
Menendez  y  Pelayo,  quoted:  Historia  de  los  heterodoxos 

espanoles,  Vol.  II,  p.  685 .  IX  23 

French  scholar,  quoted:  La  Fin  de  V Empire  espagnol, 

M.  Andre,  pp.  79-80 .  IX  33 

Lord  Rosebery,  quoted:  Miscellanies,  p.  89 .  X  12 

Annales  de  la  Societe  des  soi-disants  Jesuites,  Vol.  I, 

p.  ix,  cf.  pp.  xxxvi  et  seq .  XI  21 

Spanish  book  quoted:  Los  Jesuitas,  Ignacio  de  Lozoya 

[assumed  name?],  Madrid,  1880 .  XI  25 

Chapter  I 

Date  of  birth:  See  Appendix  C .  1  10 

Memoir  quoted:  Acta,  Chap.  I. .  1  23 

Polanco  quoted:  Vita,  Chap.  1 .  1  26 

Nadal  quoted:  Astrain,  Vol.  I,  p.  14 .  2  1 

Don  Juan  Velazquez,  etc.:  Astrain,  Vol.  I,  p.  8;  Tacchi 

Venturi,  Vol.  II,  p.  9 .  2  16 

Judicial  record  of  1515:  Scripta,  I,  pp.  580  et  seq.;  cf. 

Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  p.  10,  Astrain,  Vol.  I,  pp. 

14  et  seq .  2  38 

Lucio  Marineo :  Espana  vista  por  los  extranjeros,  J. 

Garcia  Mercadal,  Vol.  II,  pp.  51-56 .  5  29 

Gaspar  Contarini:  do,  p.  130.  ..  . .  6  31 

Guicciardini:  Opere  Inedite,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  274  et  seq.. ..  7  7 

Laurent  Vital:  Chroniques  Beiges,  Voyages  des  Sou - 
verains,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  93  et  seq.,  128,  179-183,  257- 
259  .  8  11 


375 


376 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Chapter  II 

PAGE  LINE 


Loyola’s  brothers  killed:  Ribadeneira,  Book  I,  Chap.  I, 

notes  .  11  31 

Letters  of  May  17  and  21,  1521:  St.  FranQois  de  Xavier , 

Cros,  Yol.  I,  p.  84 .  14  1 

Attack  on  citadel:  Ada,  1-2;  Vita,  Chap.  I,  p.  12; 

Tacchi  Venturi,  Yol.  II,  pp.  13-15;  Ribadeneira, 

Book  I,  Chap.  1 .  14  27 


Etudes  par  des  Peres  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus,  July  5, 
1921,  Ignace  de  Loyola  au  siege  de  Pampelune. 
The  part  that  Ignatius  played  has  undoubtedly  been 


exaggerated  by  his  earlier  biographers. 

Wounds,  etc.:  Acta,  3-5;  Vita,  Chap.  I,  pp.  13-14;  Tacchi 

Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  pp.  15-18 .  14  36 

Life  of  Christ,  etc.:  Acta,  5;  Vita,  Chap.  II,  p.  14; 

Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  p.  18,  No.  3 .  15  23 

Life  of  Christ,  quoted:  Procemium,  Chap.  I,  1-2,  Part 

II,  Chap.  II,  p.  4,  Chap.  LXXXVIII,  p.  1 .  16  1 

Loyola’s  reveries,  etc:  Acta,  6-10;  Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol. 

II,  p.  19 . 18  16 

Good  and  evil  spirits:  Acta,  8;  Vita,  Chap.  II,  pp.  14-15  19  11 

Spiritual  Exercises,  quoted:  Rules  for  the  Discernment 

of  Spirits,  further  rules,  IY,  p.  112 .  19  25 

Play  by  Tirso  de  Molina  (Gabriel  Tellez,  1571-1648). ..  20  13 

Vision  of  serpent:  Acta,  10;  Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol.  II, 

p.  21  .  20  22 

Ribadeneira  quoted:  Book  I,  Chap.  II . .  23  5 


Chapter  III 

Loyola’s  words  to  his  brother:  Acta,  12;  Vita,  Chap.  II, 


p.  16;  Ribadeneira,  Book  I,  Chap.  Ill;  Tacchi  Yen¬ 
turi,  Yol.  II,  p.  23 .  25  8 

Incident  of  the  Moor:  Acta,  15-16;  Vita,  Chap.  II,  p.  16  26  1 

Description  of  Montserrat:  Itinerarium  hispanicum 
(Revue  Hispanique),  1920,  pp.  13  et  seq .;  Familiar 
Letters,  James  Howell  to  James  Crofts,  Nov.  24, 

1620  .  26  27 

Self-dedication:  Acta,  18;  Ribadeneira,  Book  I,  Chap. 

IY ;  Vita,  Chap.  II,  p.  17 .  27  11 

Stillingfleet,  quoted:  Of  the  Idolatry  Practiced  in  the 

Church  of  Rome,  Chap.  IY,  §  13 .  28  14 

Menendez  y  Pelayo,  quoted:  Teatro  Selecto  de  Calderon, 

Yol.  I,  E studio  critico,  pp.  xxvii-xxviii .  .  29  ir 


APPENDIX  377 

Chapter  IY 

PAGE  LINE 

Life  at  Manresa:  Acta,  Chap.  Ill;  Vita,  Chaps.  II,  III; 

Ribadeneira,  Book  I,  Chap.  Y ;  Tacchi  Yenturi, 

Yol.  II,  pp.  28-41 .  31  14 

St.  Basil:  The  Church  of  the  Fathers,  Trials  of  St. 

Basil,  J.  H.  Newman,  p.  21 .  31  17 

Cave  of  Manresa:  Ribadeneira,  Book  I,  Chap.  YI,  notes; 

Astrain,  Yol.  I,  p.  33.  This  episode  has  been  ex¬ 
aggerated  .  31  29 

Mental  distress:  Acta,  20-25;  Ribadeneira,  Book  I, 

Chap.  YI  .  32  4 

Yision  of  Trinity,  etc.:  Acta,  28;  Vita,  Chap.  Ill,  p.  22  34  34 

Experiences  by  the  river  Cardona:  Acta,  30-31;  Vita, 

Chap.  Ill,  p.  20;  Astrain,  p.  39 .  35  26 

Ribadeneira  quoted:  Book  I,  Chap.  YII;  see  Vita,  Chap. 

Ill,  p.  23 .  36  15 

Spiritual  Exercises:  Ribadeneira,  Book  I,  Chap.  YIII; 

Vita,  Chap.  Ill,  p.  21;  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  p.  44 .  37  5 

Manner  of  teaching:  Vita,  Chap.  Ill,  pp.  25-26 .  37  34 

Illnesses:  Acta,  32,  34;  Ribadeneira,  Book  I,  Chap.  IX; 

Vita,  Chap.  Ill,  pp.  23-24 .  38  10 

Barcelona,  description  of :  Itinerarium,  etc.,  supra .  39  2 

Chapter  Y 

Erasmus  quoted:  Life  and  Letters  of  Erasmus,  Froude, 

p.  213 .  41  19 

Juan  Yaldes  quoted:  Dialogo  de  Mercurio  y  Caron.  ...  41  38 

Gonzalez  quoted:  Acta,  27 .  42  39 

Christopher  Cohimhus,  John  Boyd  Thacher,  Yol.  I,  pp. 

177-178  .  43  13 

Journey  to  Italy  and  Palestine:  Acta,  Chaps.  IY,  Y; 

Vita,  Chap.  IY ;  Ribadeneira,  Book  I,  Chaps.  X,  XI, 

XII;  Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  pp.  42-48 .  44  37 

Chapter  YI 

Leo  X:  History  of  the  Popes,  Pastor,  Pontificate  of 

Leo  X  .  55  5 

Lazarillo  de  Tormes:  about  1530,  author  unknown .  55  25 

Life  and  Letters  of  Martin  Luther,  Preserved  Smith, 

p.  137  .  57  8 

Lutheran  books  in  Spain :  Historia  de  los  heterodoxos, 
supra,  Yol.  II,  pp.  314  et  seq History  of  Spanish 
Literature,  Ticknor,  Period  II,  Chap.  1 .  58  7 


378 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


PAGE  LINE 

Loyola  quoted:  Spiritual  Exercises ,  Rules  for  thinking 

with  the  Church,  Chap.  XIII .  61  34 

Chapter  YII 

Episode  at  Santa  Maria  del  Mar:  Acta,  55;  Ribadeneira, 

Book  II,  Chap.  I;  Vita ,  Chap.  V,  p.  32 .  64  19 

Visit  of  Francis  I,  etc.:  La  Captivite  de  FranQois 

Premier,  Gachard,  pp.  23-24,  37-38 .  64  32 

Life  at  Barcelona :  Ribadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap.  I ;  Vita, 

Chap.  V,  pp.  31-33;  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  pp. 

49-52  .  65  20 

Erasmus:  see  Lives,  by  Jortin,  Froude,  Emerton,  etc.  . .  66  9 

Erasmistas :  Historia  de  los  heterodoxos,  supra,  Vol.  II, 
pp.  26-128;  Historia  de  la  Lengua  y  Literatura 

Castellana,  Cejador  y  Frauca,  Vol.  II,  p.  19 .  67  27 

Charges  against  Erasmus:  Historia  de  los  heterodoxos, 

supra,  Vol.  II,  pp.  74  et  seq .  69  4 

Enchiridion  Militis  Christiani:  do,  pp.  66-67;  Life  and 

Letters  of  Erasmus,  supra,  p.  82 .  69  15 

Ignatius  and  the  Enchiridion:  Ribadeneira,  Book  II, 

Chap.  I;  Vita,  Chap.  V,  p.  33 .  69  31 

Chapter  VIII 

University  of  Alcala:  Number  of  students,  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  Prescott,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  320;  La  Cap¬ 
tivite,  etc.,  supra,  p.  29,  N.  1,  gives  11,000 .  71  4 

Ignatius  at  university:  Acta ,  Chap.  VI;  Vita,  Chap.  V, 
pp.  34-38;  Ribadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap.  II;  Astrain, 

Vol.  I,  pp.  49-50;  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  pp.  52- 

57  .  72  1 

Proceedings  before  inquisitors:  Scripta,  Vol.  I,  pp. 

598  et  seq .  73  1 

Chapter  IX 

Further  proceedings  before  inquisitors:  Scripta,  supra; 

Acta,  60  et  seq.;  Ribadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap.  II; 

Astrain,  Vol.  I,  pp.  53-54 .  86  35 

Salamanca,  stay  at:  Acta,  64-70;  Vita,  Chap.  V,  pp. 

38-39;  Ribadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap.  Ill;  Astrain, 

Vol.  I,  pp.  54-58;  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  pp.  57-61  91  7 


APPENDIX  379 

Chapter  X 

PAGE  LINE 

At  Paris:  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  pp.  63-72;  Astrain, 

Vol.  I,  pp.  70-81 .  95 

Letter  to  Ines  Pascual:  Epistolce  et  Instructiones,  Vol. 

I,  p.  74 . 95  14 

Description  of  Paris :  Plan  et  Pourtrait  de  la  Ville,  Cite, 
et  VUniversite  de  Paris ,  Munster,  du  Pinet  et 

Braun;  La  Cite  de  Paris,  Belleforest .  96  17 

Alberti  Vignate,  etc. :  Description  de  la  Ville  de  Paris 

d  Vepoqne  de  Frangois  I,  Beltrami .  97  14 

College  de  Montaigu:  Kibadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap.  V, 

Notes;  as  to  site  see  map,  frontispiece,  Histoire  de 

Sainte  Barbe,  Quicherat,  Vol.  1 .  98  7 

Criticism  by  Rabelais :  (Euvres,  Marty-Laveaux,  Gargan- 

tua.  Chap.  XXXVII,  Vol.  I,  pp.  138-139 .  98  17 

Buchanan  quoted:  Histoire  de  Sainte-Barbe,  supra,  Vol. 

I,  pp.  163-164 .  98  39 

Xavier’s  experiences:  Saint  Frangois  de  Xavier,  supra, 

pp.  110-111  .  99  25 

Episode  of  the  cheat:  Acta,  73,  79;  Vita,  Chap.  VI, 

p.  42  .  99  34 

Loyola’s  life  in  Paris:  Acta,  Chap.  VIII;  Vita,  Chap. 

VI;  Kibadeneira,  Book  II,  Chaps.  V,  VI,  VII .  100  25 

College  of  Santa  Barbara :  Histoire  de  Sainte-Barbe, 

supra,  Vol.  I,  Chaps.  XIV,  XV,  XVII .  101  13 

Rabelais’  strictures  on  Parisian  audiences:  Gargantua, 

Chap.  XVII  .  101  35 

As  to  the  three  temporary  disciples:  Acta,  77;  Vita, 

Chap.  VI,  pp.  45-46;  Kibadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap. 

VI  .  102  13 


Chapter  XI 

Pierre  Lefevre  (Favre  or  Faber),  Acta,  82;  Fabri  Monu- 
menta,  pp.  3  et  seq.,  712,  721;  Vita,  Chap.  VII, 
p.  48;  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  pp.  104  et  seq.; 
Kibadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap.  VII;  De  Origine  et 
Progressu  S.  J.,  pp.  453-456 ;  the  last  two  refer¬ 


ences  contain  slight  sketches  of  all  the  first  Fathers  105  25 

Xavier:  Saint  Frangois  de  Xavier ,  supra,  Vol.  I,  pp. 

15,  60-61,  70-72,  94-95,  109,  etc .  109  6 

Lainez:  Astrain,  Vol.  I,  pp.  73-75  n. ;  Vita,  Chap.  VII, 
p.  49;  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  pp.  404  et  seq.; 

Lainii  Monnmenta,  Vol.  1 .  110  39 


380 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


PAGE  LINE 


Lainez  declines  the  purple:  do,  pp.  281-283 .  Ill  39 

Letter  to  Loyola:  do,  pp.  216-219 .  113  1 

Letter  to  mother:  do,  pp.  41  et  seq .  115  26 


Chapter  XII 


Polanco  quoted:  Chronicon  S.  J.,  Yol.  I,  pp.  178-179.  ..  117  15 

Salmeron’s  vote:  Epistolce  P.  Salmeronic,  p.  1 .  118  16 

Salmeron’s  letter  to  Loyola:  do,  pp.  37-38 .  118  37 

Rodriguez:  do,  p.  500:  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp.  76,  588  et  seq.  119  12 

Bobadilla:  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp.  76-77,  567  et  seq .  120  27 

Salmeron’s  letter:  Epistolce  P.  Salmeronis,  pp.  20-22...  122  1 

Bobadilla’s  letter  to  Lainez:  Astrain,  Yol.  II,  p.  37.  .. .  123  26 

Nadars  refusal:  Epistolce  P.  Nadal,  Yol.  I,  p.  3......  124  8 


Chapter  XIII 

Ribadeneira,  Book  I,  Chap.  YIII.  The  Spiritual  Exer¬ 
cises  were  originally  written  in  Spanish  and  trans¬ 
lated  into  Latin  in  or  before  the  year  1541;  about 
the  same  time  Father  Andre  Desfreux  made  a  sec¬ 
ond  version  in  freer,  better  Latin,  which  is  known 
as  the  Yulgate  version.  Afterwards  Father  Root- 
hahn,  General  of  the  Order,  made  a  third.  The  Eng¬ 
lish  translation  I  have  used  bears  the  title,  The  Text 
of  the  Spiritual  Exercises  of  Saint  Ignatius,  trans¬ 
lated  from  the  original  Spanish,  Fourth  Edition 
Revised  (London,  Burns  and  Oates,  Limited,  1913)  125  1 

The  concluding  Chapter  XX  was  added  later :  See, 

Epistolce  P.  Nadal,  Yol.  IY,  p.  826  (15),  “Post  con- 

sumata  studia  .  .  .  addidit  multa” .  125  15 

As  to  the  relation  of  the  Spiritual  Exercises  to  the 
Ejercitatorio  of  Cisneros,  see  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp. 

152  et  seq.;  Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  pp.  26,  27, 

N.  2;  Los  Ejercicios  de  San  Ignacio  el  Ejercitorio 
de  Cisneros,  A.  Codina,  Razon  y  Fe  (a  review), 

July,  August  and  September,  1917;  Cambridge 
Modern  History,  Yol.  II,  The  Reformation,  p.  625  126  1 

Thomas-a-Kempis  quoted:  De  imitatione  Christi,  Book 

III,  Chap.  I . .  134  34 


Chapter  XIY 


Lefevre  d’Etaples:  Les  Origines  de  la  Reforme,  P. 
Imbart  de  la  Tour,  Yol.  Ill,  pp.  220-221,  169,  170, 


APPENDIX 


381 


PAGE  LINE 

174,  240,  243,  245,  247,  250,  260;  Les  Huguenots 

du  Sixieme  Siecle,  Schaeffer,  Chap.  Ill .  136  15 

Maigret:  Les  Origines  de  la  Reforme ,  supra,  pp.  300 

et  seq .  137  19 

Rabelais  on  the  Sorbonne:  Euvres,  supra,  Yol.  IY, 

p.  20;  Ed.  Yariorum,  Tome  III,  p.  494,  No.  39.  ..  .  138  18 

Prosecution  of  fanatical  reformers:  Journal  dfun  Bour¬ 
geois  de  Paris  sous  le  regne  de  Frangois  Premier , 

pp.  250-251,  284,  291,  317,  327,  375 .  139  18 

Louis  de  Berquin:  do,  pp.  378  et  seq.;  Histoire  de  la 
France,  Guizot,  Chap.  XXX,  Frangois  I  et  la 

Reforme  .  140  15 

Rabelais  quoted:  (Euvres,  supra,  Gargantua ,  Chaps. 

XXYII,  XXXIX,  XXXXI,  Pantagruel,  Book  II, 

Chap.  YII,  p.  248;  Ed.  Yariorum,  Tome  III,  p.  212, 

No.  88,  “The  bad  odor  of  the  Spaniards  overcock- 

cowldoodledoed  by  Brother  Inigo” .  140  28 

Les  Placards :  Les  Origines  de  la  Reforme,  supra,  Yol. 

Ill,  pp.  196  et  seq.,  268-269;  Clement  Marot 
(Euvres,  G.  Guiffrez,  Yol.  I,  p.  208  et  seq.;  Le 
Journal  d’un  Bourgeois  de  Paris,  supra,  pp.  441 

et  seq .  141  3 

Protest  by  Paul  III:  Clement  Marot,  supra,  Yol.  I,  p. 

248;  C  orrespondance  des  Reformaleurs,  Herminjard, 

Yol.  Ill,  p.  321,  Sturm  to  Melancthon,  No.  25 .  142  4 

Lefevre  d’Etaples  quoted:  Les  Origines  de  la  Reforme, 

supra,  Yol.  Ill,  pp.  133-136 . 142  34 

Chapter  XY 

Yow  at  Montmartre:  Vita,  Chap.  YII,  p.  50;  Ribade- 
neira,  Book  II,  Chap.  YII;  De  Origine  et  Progressu 
Societatis  Jesu  ( Epistolce  Paschasii  Bro'eti  et 

aliorum ),  Rodriguez,  pp.  457-460 .  145  1 

Claude  Jay  (or  Le  Jay,  Jajus  in  Latin):  Epistolce 

Paschasii  Bro'eti  et  al.,  supra,  pp.  258  et  seq .  146  35 

Rodriguez  quoted:  De  Origine,  etc.,  supra,  pp.  495-496.  .  147  23 

Jay  quoted:  Epistolce  P.  Bro'eti  et  al.,  supra,  pp.  273,  293  148  39 

Paschase  Broet:  Epistolce  P.  Bro'eti  et  al.,  supra,  pp.  9 

et  seq .  149  13 

His  last  note:  do,  p.  194 .  149  30 

Coduri :  do,  pp.  409  et  seq .  150  12 

Death  of  Hoces:  Vita,  Chap.  YIII,  p.  62;  Epistola  P. 

Lainii  de  S.  Ignatio,  Scripta,  Yol.  I,  p.  126 .  150  21 


382 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Chapter  XYI 

PAGE  LINE 

Stay  at  Azpeitia:  Vita,  Chap.  VII,  p.  52;  Kibadeneira, 

Book  II,  Chap.  VIII;  Acta,  87-89;  Astrain,  Vol. 

I,  p.  83;  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  pp.  79-82 .  151  21 

Municipal  ordinance:  Scripta,  Vol.  I,  pp.  539  et  seq.j 

Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  p.  81,  N.  3 .  153  12 

Xavier’s  letter:  Monumenta  Xavenaria,  Vol.  I,  p.  201.  .  156  26 

Pirates  in  Mediterranean:  Lettres  ecrites  Tltalie  par 

Rabelais,  p.  49,  N.  2 .  159  4 

Loyola’s  voyage:  Acta,  91,  33 . 159  13 

Chapter  XVII 

Loyola’s  tramp  to  Bologna :  Kibadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap. 

VIII;  Vita,  Chap.  VII,  pp.  53-54;  Acta,  91 .  160  3 

Letter  to  Cazador:  Epistolce  et  Instructiones ,  Vol.  I, 

p.  93  .  161  1 

Venice,  etc.:  Clement  Marot,  supra,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  10, 

Epistre  envoy  ee  de  Venise  a  Madame  la  duchesse 
de  Ferrare ;  Receuil  de  Voyages,  Le  Voyage  de  la 
Sainte  Terre;  Titian,  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle,  Vol. 

II,  Chap.  II,  p.  40  (Priscianese’s  letter).  Familiar 

Letters ,  Howell,  supra,  June  1,  Aug.  1,  1621 .  163  1 

Diego  Eguia  on  Ignatius:  Scripta,  Vol.  I,  p.  509 .  165  24 

Hoces  and  the  Spiritual  Exercises:  Acta ,  92;  Vita, 

Chap.  VIII,  p.  55 .  165  29 

Caraffa  (Paul  IV)  :  see  History  of  the  Popes,  supra, 

Pontificate  of  Paul  IV,  and  for  earlier  life.  Pontifi¬ 
cate  of  Clement  VII .  166  10 

Loyola’s  letter  to  Caraffa :  Epistolce  et  Instructiones,  Vol. 

I,  p.  114.  It  is  not  certain,  but  highly  probable, 
that  this  letter  is  addressed  to  Caraffa  and  relates 

to  the  matter  in  question .  167  1 

Letter  to  Theresa  Bezadilla:  do,  Vol.  I,  p.  99 .  169  18 

Same  to  same:  do,  p.  107 .  172  10 

Letter  to  Father  Miona:  do,  p.  Ill .  173  27 

Accusations,  etc.:  Acta,  93;  Kibadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap. 

IX;  Scripta,  Vol.  I,  pp.  624-626 .  174  29 

Chapter  XVIII 

Journey  of  disciples  from  Paris  to  Venice:  De  Origine 
et  Progressu  S.  J.,  supra,  pp.  462-474 ;  Kibadeneira, 

Book  II,  Chap.  IX;  Vita,  Chap.  VII,  p.  54  (as  to 

Broet’s  looks)  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  p.  145....  178  32 


APPENDIX 


383 


PAGE 

Disciples'  visit  to  Rome:  Vita ,  Chap.  VIII,  pp.  57-59; 

Ribadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap.  IX .  180 

Incident  at  Ravenna:  De  Origine  et  Progressu  8.  J., 

supra,  pp.  480-481 .  181 

Paul  III  (Farnese)  :  see  History  of  the  Popes,  supra. 

Pontificate  of  Paul  III .  182 

Permission  for  ordination:  Zeitscrift  fur  Katholische 
Theologie,  Vol.  15,  1891,  pp.  146  et  seq.,  Die  Ordi¬ 
nation  des  hi.  Ignatius  von  Loyola .  182 

Retreats  and  missions,  etc.:  Acta,  94-95;  Vita,  Chap. 

VIII,  pp.  60-61;  Ribadeneira,  Book  II,  Chap.  X; 
Epistola  P.  Lainii,  supra,  pp.  117-118;  Astrain, 

Vol.  I,  pp.  87  et  seq .  183 

Rodriguez  quoted :  De  Origine  et  Progressu  S.  J.,  supra, 

p.  492  . .  184 

Ribadeneira  quoted:  Book  III,  Chap.  1 .  186 

Vision  at  Storta:  Acta,  96;  Vita,  Chap.  VIII,  pp.  63-64; 
Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  I;  Tacchi  Venturi, 

Vol.  II,  pp.  3-4 .  186 


Chapter  XIX 


Vision  at  Monte  Cassino:  Vita,  Chap.  VIII,  p.  62; 
Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  II;  De  Origine  et 

Progressu  8.  J.,  supra,  pp.  492-493 . 

Beginning  life  in  Rome:  Vita,  Chap.  VIII,  pp.  64-67; 
Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  Ill;  Astrain,  Vol.  I, 
pp.  89-91;  Tacchi  Venturi,  Le  Case  ahitate  da  8. 
Ignazio  di  Loyola  in  Roma,  in  8tudi  e  Documenti 

di  storia  e  diritto,  XX,  pp.  287-356 . 

Persecutions:  Acta,  98;  Vita,  Chap.  IX,  pp.  67-69; 
Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  IV ;  Astrain,  Vol. 
I,  pp.  92-93;  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  pp.  153-163.  . 
Michael's  letter:  Epistolce  Mixtce,  Vol.  I,  pp.  11  et  seq.; 

see  also  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  p.  162,  No.  3 . 

Letter  to  Isabel  Roser:  Epistolce  et  Instructions,  Vol.  I, 
p.  137  . . . . 


189 


189 

191 

192 
196 


Chapter  XX 


Discussions  as  to  charter:  Acta,  99-100;  Vita,  Chap.  IX, 
pp.  70-73;  Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chaps.  Ill, 
VIII;  Acta  Sanctorum,  §§  280-288;  Astrain,  Vol.  I, 
pp.  93-98;  Tacchi  Venturi,  Vol.  II,  pp.  188  et  seq.; 
Bartoli,  Book  II,  Chap.  XIII .  202 


LINE 

25 

10 

5 

27 


2 

25 

6 

35 


1 


13 

21 

22 

3 


9 


384 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


PAGE  LINE 

Lainez  on  Loyola:  Epistola  P.  Lainii,  supra,  p.  125.  .. .  204  8 

Contarini  to  Ignatius:  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  p.  97,  No.  1.  ..  .  204  31 

Salmeron’s  letter  quoted:  Epistolce  et  Instructiones,  Yol. 

I,  p.  154 .  205  14 

The  opposition:  Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  pp.  305-314; 

Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp.  97-98 .  205  20 

“The  finger  of  God” :  Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap. 

YIII;  Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  pp.  301  et  seq .  206  11 

Pierre  Lefevre  quoted:  Fabri  Monumenta,  p.  498 .  206  14 

Charter  quoted:  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp.  98-101;  Tacchi 

Yenturi,  Yol.  I,  pp.  558-565,  cf.  Yol.  II,  pp.  297-301  207  1 

Chapter  XXI 

Election  of  General:  Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  IX; 

Historia  S.  J .,  1541 ;  Bartoli,  Book  II,  Chap.  XIY ; 

Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp.  117  et  seq .  212  1 

Broet’s  ballot:  Epistolce  Paschasii  Broeti  et  al,,  p.  23.. .  212  19 

Coduri’s  ballot:  do,  pp.  418-419 .  212  25 

Rodriguez’  ballot:  do,  p.  519 .  213  11 

The  constitution:  Bartoli,  Book  III;  Ribadeneira,  Book 
III,  Chap.  XYII;  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  Chap.  X,  cf. 

Chap.  YIII,  pp.  134-139 .  216  13 

Boulainvilliers  quoted:  I  rely  on  Yoltaire’s  authority. 

(Euvres  Completes,  M.  Beuchot,  Tome  XIX,  p.  67. .  223  15 

Chapter  XXII 

Missions:  Historia  S.  J.,  1540,  1541,  1542,  etc.;  Tacchi 

Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  Chaps.  VII,  YIII,  IX .  224  18 

Lainez  to  Loyola :  Lainii  Monumenta,  Yol.  I,  pp.  3  et  seq.  226  21 

Andre  Desfreux  (de  Freux,  Frusiers,  Frusio)  quoted: 

Astrain,  Yol.  I,  p.  499,  No.  2 .  229  8 

Bodadilla  at  Naples:  Epistolce  P.  Bobadillce ,  pp.  18-20. .  229  31 

Nadal  at  Messina:  Letterce  Quadrimestres,  Yol.  I,  p.  349  229  33 

Letter  of  Salmeron  and  Broet :  Epistolce  Paschasii 

Broeti  et  al.,  pp.  23-31 .  230  14 

Chapter  XXIII 

Jesuits  in  Portugal:  Epistolce  Mixtce,  Yol.  I,  pp.  514- 
515;  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp.  586-587;  see  also  Ribade¬ 
neira,  Book  III,  Chap.  XX .  235  19 

Letter  to  Lefevre:  Fabri  Monumenta,  pp.  342  et  seq... .  236  21 

Letter  from  Flemish  Father:  do,  pp.  339  et  seq .  239  3 


APPENDIX 


385 


PAGE  LINE 

Rodriguez’  defence:  Epistolce  Paschasii  Broeti  et  al., 


(letter  to  Loyola),  pp.  547  et  seq .  239  7 

Loyola’s  letter:  Epistolce  et  Instructiones ,  Yol.  I,  pp. 

495  et  seq .  240  15 


Chapter  XXIV 

Araoz  and  Lefevre  in  Spain :  Historia  S.  J.,  1540,  1541, 
1542,  etc.,  see  indices;  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp.  230 


et  seq .  245  24 

Foundation  of  colleges  in  Spain:  Ribadeneira,  Book 
III,  Chap.  XX;  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  Book  II,  Chap. 

XII  .  246  16 

Francis  Borgia:  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  Book  II,  Chap.  YI.  ..  .  246  26 

St.  Teresa  quoted:  Autobiography,  Chap.  IY .  247  18 

Melchior  Cano’s  opposition:  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  Book  II, 

Chap.  VIII;  Epistolce  P.  Nadal,  Yol.  II,  Ephem - 

erides,  pp.  44  et  seq .  248  4 

Loyola’s  letter  to  Archbishop  of  Toledo:  Astrain,  Yol.  I, 

p.  364  .  248  37 

Beginnings  of  Society  in  France:  Histoire  de  la  Com- 
pagnie  de  Jesus  en  France  1528-1762,  Fouqueray, 

Yol.  I,  Book  II,  Chap.  I;  Ribadeneira,  Book  III, 

Chap.  XXI;  Epistolce  Mixtce,  Yol.  I,  pp.  73-74,  100- 

104;  Historia  S.  J.,  1540,  1541,  etc .  249  33 

Decree  of  Sorbonne:  Histoire  de  la  Compagnie,  etc., 


Self-restraint  of  Ignatius:  Scripta,  Yol.  I,  pp.  375-376, 

426  .  251  23 

Acta  Sanctorum  Julii  YII  quoted:  §  XLYII,  pp.  503- 
505;  see  also  Histoire  de  la  Compagnie,  etc.,  pp. 

213-216  . .  252  21 


Chapter  XXY 

Council  of  Trent:  Concilium  Tridentum,  Yol.  Y,  June 


23,  Sept.  27-28-29,  Oct.  16,  26,  1546;  Jan.  22,  Feb. 

17,  1547,  etc.;  Istoria  del  Concilio  di  Trento,  Palla- 
vicino;  Council  of  Trent,  Froude;  History  of  the 
Popes,  supra,  Yol.  XII;  Historia  S.  J.,  1546,  1547, 

etc.;  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  Chap.  XYI .  253  1 

Instructions:  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp.  517-520 .  256  10 

Lainez  and  Salmeron  at  Trent:  Epistolce  P.  Salmeronis, 

Yol.  I,  pp.  15,  22,  25,  28,  etc .  258  6 


386 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


PAGE  LINE 


Pastor  quoted:  History  of  the  Popes,  supra,  Yol.  XII, 

Chap.  IX,  p.  343 .  259  18 

Salmeron  to  Loyola:  Epistolce  P.  Salmeronis,  Yol.  I, 

pp.  36-37  .  260  1 

Lainez  to  Loyola:  Lainii  Monumenta ,  Yol.  I,  pp.  192 

et  seq .  260  30 

Quarrel  between  Lainez  and  Cano:  Astrain,  Yol.  I, 

pp.  561-563;  Epistolce  P.  Nodal,  Yol.  II,  p.  45 .  265  20 


Chapter  XXYI 

Xavier’s  mission:  Epistolce  et  Instructiones,  Yol.  I, 
p.  132,  Letter  to  Diego  de  Govea;  St.  Frangois  de 
Xavier,  supra,  Yol.  I,  pp.  150  et  seq.;  Ribadeneira, 


Book  III,  Chap.  YI;  Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  pp. 

360  et  seq.;  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  Book  II,  Chap.  XIY.  .  267  1 

Ignatius  to  his  nephew:  Epistolce  et  Instructiones,  Yol. 

I,  pp.  155-156 .  268  4 

Xavier’s  letter  from  Bologna :  Monumenta  Xaveriana, 

Yol.  I,  pp.  207  et  seq.;  from  Lisbon,  p.  241 .  268  36 

Xavier’s  voyage  to  India:  Vita  S.  Francisci,  Yalignani, 

Chap.  II  in  Monumenta  Xaveriana,  Yol.  I,  pp.  7 
et  seq.;  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  pp.  466-467 ;  Tacchi  Yenturi, 

Yol.  II,  p.  371,  N.  2 .  269  17 

Xavier’s  letter  to  brethren  at  home:  Monumenta 

Xaveriana,  Yol.  I,  pp.  278  et  seq .  271  7 

Xavier’s  letters  quoted:  do,  pp.  259,  266,  473,  476,  481- 
482,  600,  668;  to  Loyola,  Jan.  29,  1552,  pp.  667 

et  seq .  275  20 

Xavier  quoted:  do,  pp.  59,  67,  68,  75,  88,  89,  291,  294, 

348,  350,  403,  404,  427,  etc .  277  32 

Xavier  and  the  pilot:  do,  p.  57 .  280  6 

Letter  of  Jan.  27,  1545:  do,  p.  364 . 281  3 

Yalignani  quoted:  do,  p.  54 .  281  21 


Chapter  XXYII 

Pierre  Lefevre:  Fabri  Monumenta,  Processus,  pp.  811 
et  seq.;  Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  XIY ;  Ricordi, 

Couvillon,  Chap.  2;  Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  pp.  406 

et  seq .  283  31 

Lefevre’s  letters  quoted:  Fabri  Monumenta,  pp.  (love 
of  Germans)  50,  (Beatriz  Ramirez)  128-129,  (Isabel 
Roser)  156  .  285  12 


APPENDIX 


387 


PAGE  LINE 

Memoriale  quoted:  do,  pp.  (prayer  at  Worms)  499  (20), 

(St.  Pinosa’s  head)  504  (28),  (imprisonment  in 
France)  502  (24),  (St.  Elizabeth)  502  (25),  (enter¬ 
ing  Spain)  503  (28),  507  (33),  622  (265) .  285  23 

Letter  to  cousin :  do,  pp.  201  et  seq .  290  18 

On  obedience:  do,  pp.  284  et  seq .  290  38 

Memoriale  quoted:  do,  pp.  691-692 .  293  10 

Letter  to  Lainez:  do,  p.  399 .  294  1 

Chapter  XXYIII 

Rome  in  XYIth  century:  Plan  of  Rome,  Bufolini, 

1551;  Plan,  Antonio  Tempesta,  1593 .  295  1 

Pietro  Aretino  quoted :  Lettere  di  Aretino,  Libro  Primo, 

to  Giambattista  Castaldo,  April  12,  1537 .  298  2 

Wolsey’s  candidacy:  Correspondence  of  Charles  V,  Brad¬ 
ford,  pp.  13,  17,  18,  26,  29 . 298  10 

Baldassarre  Castiglione  quoted:  History  of  the  Popes, 

supra,  Yol.  IX,  p.  500.  .  . . 298  38 

Pietro  Aretino  quoted:  Lettere,  supra,  Libro  Secondo, 

CCCXL,  May  1,  1538 .  299  4 

Ribadeneira  quoted:  Tacchi  Yenturi,  Yol.  II,  p.  350, 

N.  3  .  299  4 

Du  Bellay  quoted:  Revue  des  Etudes  Rabelaisiennes 

(5),  1907,  p.  234 .  299  23 

Bishop  of  Macon’s  invitation :  do,  p.  240,  X.  3 .  299  38 

Dealings  in  antiquities:  do,  pp.  233-236 .  300  6 

Oratory  of  Divine  Love:  History  of  the  Popes,  supra, 

Yol.  XI,  p.  515;  X,  pp.  389  et  seq .  302  2 

Confraternitd  della  Caritd :  do,  Yol.  X,  p.  393 .  302  10 

Teatini:  do,  pp.  408-411;  (Gaetano)  40 .  302  13 

Capuchins:  do,  pp.  460,  N.  2,  449,  452,  467 .  302  35 

Yittoria  Colonna:  “of  generous  soul,  magnanimous 
nature,  inquiring  intelligence,  compact  of  virtues, 
of  noble  manners  and  godly  life’’ ;  Lettere  di  Pietro 
Aretino,  supra,  Libro  Secondo,  p.  328;  Vittoria 

Colonna,  Wyss,  pp.  47-54,  poems,  151,  174 .  303  22 

Michelangelo  verses:  Poesie,  CL,  CLI .  304  14 

Chapter  XXIX 

Que  queremos  governar,  etc. :  Epistolce  et  Instructiones, 

Yol.  I,  p.  459,  and  cf.  p.  447,  “que  queremos  re- 
formar  todo  el  mondo”  (that  we  wish  to  reform  all 
the  world)  .  305  17 


388 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


PAGE  LINE 

Mode  of  doing  business:  Scripta ,  Yol.  I,  p.  398  (30).  ..  306  1 

As  to  establishing  Inquisition  in  Portugal :  Epistoloe  et 
Instructiones,  Yol.  I  (to  Prince  Henry),  p.  214, 

(to  Rodriguez),  pp.  216,  220,  223,  cf.  do,  pp.  737, 

739,  and  Scripta,  Vol.  I,  p.  380  (88) .  306  30 

Refusal  of  inquisitorial  labors:  Scripta,  Yol.  I,  pp. 

320  (354),  324  (368),  but  see,  327  (380,  381).  ..  ..  .  306  34 

Refusal  of  ecclesiastical  offices:  do,  pp.  372-374  (74); 

Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  XIII .  306  35 

Saying  of  Marcellus  II:  do,  p.  360  (51),  393-4  (1) .  307  9 

Rules  for  correspondence:  Epistoloe  et  Instructiones, 

Yol.  I,  pp.  542  et  seq .  307  16 

Ribadeneira’s  anecdote:  Scripta,  Yol.  I,  p.  358  (47).  ..  .  308  36 

Charitable  works  in  Rome :  Ribadeneira,  Book  III, 

Chap.  XI ;  Historia  S.  J.,  1541  §  27,  1543  §  48,  1544 
§  68,  1545  §  87,  1546  §§  114-115,  1547  §167;  Vita, 

pp.  65-66  .  309  30 

Collegio  Romano  and  German  College:  Ribadeneira, 

Book  III,  Chap.  XIX  and  notes .  310  13 

Anecdote  as  to  Jews:  Scripta,  Yol.  I,  pp.  398-399  (32).  .  310  35 

Calumnies  with  reference  to  St.  Martha’s  Home: 

Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  XI .  311  16 

Trouble  with  Isabel  Roser :  Ribadeneira,  Book  III, 

Chap.  XII;  Scripta,  Yol.  I,  pp.  645-659;  Tacchi 
Yenturi,  Yol.  I  (Palmio’s  diary,  Chap.  XYII),  p. 

615  .  311  33 

Diary  of  Benedetto  Palmio:  do,  (Chaps.  XII,  XIII, 

XYIII),  pp.  609  et  seq .  312  29 

Anecdote  as  to  Dr.  Olave:  Scripta,  Yol.  I,  p.  239  (174), 

cf.  p.  502 .  317  38 

Rules  for  use  of  garden:  do,  pp.  240-241 .  318  14 

Rules  as  to  house,  etc. :  do,  pp.  483  et  seq.;  as  to  table, 

Palmio’s  diary,  Chap.  XYII,  supra .  319  20 

Loyola’s  habits :  Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  X,  notes ; 

Scripta,  Yol.  I  (music),  p.  242  (178) . .  320  1 

Chapter  XXX 

Ribadeneira  quoted:  Book  III,  Chap.  X,  Notes .  321  30 

Saying  of  Andre  Desfreux:  Scripta,  Yol.  I,  p.  367  (65)  322  3 

Ribadeneira  quoted:  Scripta,  Yol.  I,  p.  376  (80)  (81)..  322  18 

Gonzalez  quoted:  do,  p.  165  (26) .  323  3 

Ignatius  quoted:  do,  p.  203  (103) .  323  29 

Lord  Rosebery  quoted:  Miscellanies,  p.  106 .  323  35 


APPENDIX 


389 


PAGE  LINE 

Ignatius  quoted:  Scripta,  Vol.  I,  p.  341  (111) .  324  3 

Acts  of  sternness:  do ,  p.  175  (46),  (Zapata’s  case),  pp. 

630  et  seq.,  645  No.  5,  178  (51),  347-348  (28), 

(Theutonio’s  case)  416  (4),  388  (101) .  324  8 

Episode  of  Father  Confessor:  do,  p.  364  (56) .  324  31 

Episode  of  Diego  Eguia:  do,  p.  364  (57) .  324  39 

Episode  in  garden:  do,  p.  365  (58)..; .  325  10 

Episode  of  old  Father:  do,  p.  450  (6) .  326  5 

Episode  of  porter:  do,  p.  346  (26) .  326  13 

Ribadeneira  quoted:  do,  pp.  379-380  (86) .  326  26 

Lainez  quoted:  do .  326  37 

Gonzalez  quoted:  do,  pp.  397  (26),  195  (86),  196  (88), 

423  (26)  (29) .  327  3 

Care  of  sick:  do,  p.  167  (31) .  327  38 

Anecdote  touching  Dr.  Olave:  do,  p.  368  (67) .  328  7 

Other  anecdotes:  do,  pp.  197  (91)  (92),  198  (93),  202 

(102),  397-398  (28),  398  (29) .  328  14 

Polish  Father  quoted:  do,  p.  496 .  328  37 

Ignatius  quoted:  do  (his  composure),  p.  346  (25); 

(live  long),  397  (23) ;  (prayers  and  deliberations), 

395  (11) ;  (seven  occasions),  366  (59) ;  (letter  to 
Borgia),  407  (5)  ;  (to  Nadal),  408  (9) ;  (neither  to 
right,  etc.),  cf.  481 .  329  14 

Chapter  XXXI 

Saying  to  Gonzalez:  Acta,  99 .  331  3 

Notebook,  etc. :  Ribadeneira,  Book  III,  Chap.  XVII, 

Notes,  quoting  Orlandini .  331  33 

Gonzalez  quoted:  Scripta,  p.  243  (179) .  332  9 

Mystical  visions:  do,  p.  242  (177),  395  (14)  (15),  353 
(39),  399  (34),  396  (21),  399  (33),  398  (31),  385 

(95),  395  (8),  399  (35) .  332  20 

Vision  at  Manresa,  etc.:  Acta,  28;  see  Ribadeneira, 

Book  I,  Chap.  V;  Astrain,  Vol.  I,  651 .  333  11 

Oliver  Lodge  quoted:  Reason  and  Belief,  p.  43 .  334  8 

Anecdote  of  the  Devil:  Scripta,  p.  345  (22) .  334  36 

Anecdote  of  the  young  Biscayan:  do,  p.  391  (109) .  335  7 

Anecdote  told  by  Lainez:  do,  p.  339  (6) .  335  16 

Voltaire  quoted:  Dictionnaire  Philosophique,  Jesuites.  .  336  30 

Bartoli  quoted:  Book  V,  Chap.  I  (3) .  337  5 

As  to  his  humility:  Scripta,  pp.  339  (7),  395  (6), 

397  (25)  .  337  29 

Gonzalez  quoted:  do,  p.  397  (24)  (25),  cf.  515  (15)....  338  24 


390 


IGNATIUS  LOYOLA 


Chapter  XXXII 

PAGE  LINE 

Anecdote  of  refectory  windows,  etc. :  Scripta,  Yol.  I, 

p.  414  (4)  (5) .  339  14 

Graciousness:  do,  p.  196  (89) .  339  31 

Tact:  do,  pp.  202  (103)  (104),  204  (107),  432  (65), 

434  (70),  477,  281  (261) .  340  11 

Prudence:  do,  pp.  397  (27),  234  (163),  341  (13),  437 

(83),  375  (78) .  341  5 

No  criticism  of  Pope,  etc.:  do,  pp.  198  (94),  199  (93), 

467-468  (22),  389  (102),  428-429  (51),  413  (2)  (3)  341  26 

Dr.  Olave’s  book,  etc.:  do,  p.  434  (73),  Ribadeneira, 

Book  IV,  Chap.  IV .  342  18 

Humour:  do,  pp.  164  (23),  196  (87);  (Letter  about 
Father  Barbaran)  Epistoloe  et  Instructiones,  supra, 

Vol.  I,  p.  408;  accident  to  shed,  Scripta,  Yol.  I, 

pp.  366-367  (60) .  343  2 

Strict  with  Nadal  and  Polanco,  etc.:  do,  pp.  424  (31), 

454-455  .  345  24 

Loyola’s  instructions:  Epistoloe  et  Instructiones,  Yol.  I, 

p.  235  .  346  22 

Loyola  and  the  Inquisition:  Spain,  Scripta,  Yol.  I, 
p.  469  (26) ;  Portugal,  History  of  the  Popes,  supra, 

Yol.  X,  pp.  371-372,  XII,  pp.  46-47,  503-507; 

Epistoloe  et  Instructiones,  Yol.  I  (Prince  Henry  to 
Loyola),  p.  215;  (Loyola  to  Rodriguez),  pp.  216, 

220,  223,  346;  Rome,  do,  pp.  218,  219 .  348  28 

Canisius  quoted:  Geschicte  des  Deutschen  Volkes, 

Jansen,  Yol.  Y,  Chap.  XVII,  pp.  178-179 .  350  33 

Chapter  XXXIII 

Ribadeneira  quoted:  Book  IY,  Chap.  IY .  351  d 

Ignatius  quoted:  do .  352  27 

Lainez  quoted:  Scripta ,  Yol.  I,  p.  393  (3) .  353  2 

Proverb  among  Brothers:  do,  p.  217  (131) .  353  6 

Loyola’s  death :  Ribadeneira,  Book  IY,  Chap.  I ;  Astrain, 

Yol.  I,  pp.  640-641;  Historia  S.  J .,  Yol.  YI,  pp. 

35-38  .  354  3 

Condition  of  Society  in  1912:  The  Catholic  Encyclo¬ 
pedia,  Society  of  Jesus .  355  16 

Bartoli  quoted:  Book  YI,  Chap.  1 .  356  38 

Relations  des  Jesuites:  1635,  pp.  28-29 .  358  1 

Jesuits  in  North  America,  Parkman:  p.  57,  N.  2,  p.  390.  358  25 


APPENDIX 


391 


Chapter  XXXIY 

PAGE  LINE 

Thomas  of  Celano:  First  Life ,  Chap.  XY  (39),  XYII 

(45);  Second  Life,  Chap.  CXII  (152) .  359  29 

Loyola  on  the  Eucharist:  Observaciones  sobre  “El  Apos- 
tolado  Eucaristico  de  San  Ignacio  ”  Razon  y  Fe, 

Sept.,  Oct.,  1909,  Yol.  25 .  360  2 

Dr.  Coit  quoted:  Salve  Mater,  F.  J.  Kinsman,  p.  23 

N .  360  11 

Phillips  Brooks  quoted:  Phillips  Brooks,  1835-1893, 

A.  Y.  G.  Allen,  p.  472 .  360  20 

Epictetus  quoted:  Book  III,  Chap.  22 .  361  7 

St.  Anthony  quoted:  Histories  sen  Vitos  Sanctorum, 

Surius,  Jan.  17,  §  15 .  361  12 

Vie  de  Charles  Foucauld,  Bene  Bazin,  pp.  135-138,  165, 

226  .  361  23 

Matthew  Arnold:  Rugby  Chapel . 367  10 


APPENDIX 


C 

Date  of  Loyola’s  Birth 

The  date  almost  universally  accepted  by  Jesuit  writers,  although 
admitted  not  to  be  free  from  doubt,  is  1491,  which  in  imitation  of 
Father  Polanco  I  shall  call  the  Nurses  date.  Who  the  nurse  was  I 
have  never  heard.  This  date  seems  to  have  been  fixed  upon  by 
those  Fathers  who  were  in  Borne  at  Loyola’s  death,  and  put  upon 
his  tombstone;  at  that  time  Bibadeneira  was  in  Flanders,  Nadal 
in  Spain,  and  Gonzalez  in  Portugal.  The  arguments  in  favor  of 
the  Nurse's  date  will  be  found  in  Astrain,  Yol.  I,  p.  3,  Note  2. 

In  support  of  the  date  1495,  I  may  refer  to  Father  Kreiten  and  to 
La  Civilta  Cattolicd,  July,  1900,  both  cited  in  Astrain’s  note. 

My  reasons  are  briefly  these: 

(1)  My  proposition  may  be  stated  categorically: 

A.  His  conversion  occurred  after  his  wound  at  Pamplona,  in 

1521. 

B.  At  that  time  he  was  26  years  old. 

C.  It  follows  that  he  was  born  in  1495. 

As  to  A :  it  is  clear  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt  that  his  conversion 
took  place  during  his  convalescence;  although  the  upholders  of  the 
Nurse's  date  (as  they  are  obliged  to  do)  try  to  maintain  that  the 
conversion  took  place  five  years  earlier  (Acta  Sanctorum  Julii,  Tom. 
VII,  p.  637).  How  do  they  explain  that,  under  their  hypothesis,  he 
continued  to  be  a  soldier  and  made  no  change  of  life? 

As  to  B :  it  is  equally  clear  from  the  opening  sentences  of  his 
Memoirs  that  he  was  26  years  old  at  the  time  of  his  conversion.  His 
conversion  was  the  memorable  event  of  his  life.  His  disciples  asked 
him  to  dictate  an  account  of  his  converted  life;  they  did  not  care 
particularly  about  his  boyhood.  They  asked :  Quern  ad  modum  ab 
initio  sues  conversione  ilium  Dominus  Gubernavit?  And  his  answer 
begins:  Hasta  los  26  annos  de  su  edad, — i.e.,  he  starts  his  narrative 
at  the  age  of  26. 

Acceptance  of  this  age  of  26  at  the  time  he  was  wounded  establishes 
the  date  1495. 

(2)  Polanco  at  first  (Historia  S.  J.,  1537,  Yol.  I,  p.  77)  accepted 
the  Nurse's  date,  1491,  but  afterwards  abandoned  it  in  favor  of  1495 
(do,  p.  9).  This,  I  submit,  must  have  been  because  he  had  good 
reason  to  believe  that  he  had  been  wrong. 

392 


APPENDIX 


393 


(3)  Ribadeneira  first  took  1495,  but  on  the  strength  of  Polanco’s 
earlier  position  and  of  the  inscription  on  the  tombstone,  shifted  to 
1491;  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  aware  of  Polanco’s  change  of 
mind. 

(4)  Esteben  de  Garibay  (see  Astrain’s  note  aforesaid),  although 
pooh-poohed  by  Astrain,  is  not,  I  think,  a  negligible  witness.  In 
1566  he  wrote  a  chronicle  of  Spain,  and  having  come  to  the  attack 
on  Pamplona,  makes  a  digression  to  give  a  summary  of  Loyola’s 
life,  and  puts  the  date  of  birth  as  1495.  He  was  a  Spaniard,  and 
in  Spain  at  the  time,  and  must  have  had  some  authority,  wherever 
he  may  have  got  it,  for  that  date. 

(5)  All  the  chief  incidents  in  Loyola’s  life  accord  better  with 
the  later  date: 

1515:  It  is  more  likely  that  when  he  took  part  in  the  carnival 
fracas  he  was  nineteen  years  old  rather  than  twenty-three. 

1517:  He  left  Hon  Juan  Velazquez’s  household  at  the  latter’s 
death.  It  is  more  likely  (as  he  was  only  adopted  until  a  place  in 
the  King’s  court  should  be  found  for  him)  that,  failing  such  a 
situation,  he  should  go  to  his  kinsman,  the  Duke  of  Najera,  when 
he  was  twenty-two  than  when  he  was  twenty-six.  I  suspect  that 
he  would  have  left  earlier  but  for  the  approaching  death  of  Don 
Juan. 

1521:  The  emotional  crisis  of  conversion  psychologically  befits 
the  younger  age  better. 

1526 :  In  the  inquisitorial  proceedings  at  Alcala,  the  witnesses 
call  him  a  young  man,  and  (except  one  who  thinks  he  was  the 
eldest)  make  no  distinction  between  his  age  and  those  of  his  college 
comrades,  who  were  probably  eighteen  to  twenty-one,  and  the  priest 
suggests  his  age  as  twenty.  ( Scripta ,  Vol.  I,  p.  600,  line  1.) 

1556:  His  illnesses  and  extreme  asceticism  make  it  remarkable 
that  he  attained  the  age  of  sixty-one;  each  added  year  makes  his 
length  of  life  still  more  surprising. 

(6)  I  cannot  but  think  that  deference  to  authority,  especially  to 
the  Bull  of  Canonization,  affects  Jesuit  scholars,  however  uncon¬ 
scious  they  may  be,  and  that  they  accept  the  Nurse's  date  as  a 
chose  jugee. 


INDEX 


Acton,  Lord:  on  Ignatius,  p.  ix. 

Alcala:  university  of,  p.  71;  Loyola’s 
stay  there,  p.  72;  first  inquisitorial 
proceeding,  p.  73;  third,  p.  86. 

Araoz,  S.  J.:  goes  to  Spain,  p.  245; 
his  preaching,  p.  246. 

Aretino,  Pietro,  p.  163;  quoted,  pp. 
298,  299,  303. 

Arnold,  Matthew:  Rugby  Chapel , 
quoted,  p.  367. 

Astrain,  S.  J.:  History  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus  in  Spain:  p.  xii. 

i 

Barcelona:  description  of,  p.  39; 
Loyola’s  return,  p.  51;  stay  at, 
Chap,  vii,  p.  63. 

Bartoli,  S.  J.:  quoted,  on  Loyola’s 
humility,  p.  337 ;  narrative  of 
miracle,  356-357. 

Bellay,  Jean  du,  Cardinal:  ambas¬ 
sador  to  Pope,  p.  299;  search  for 
antiquities,  p.  300. 

Berquin,  Louis  de:  p.  140. 

Bobadilla,  S.  J.:  introduced,  p.  120; 
behavior  in  Germany,  p.  122;  let¬ 
ter  to  Lainez,.p.  123;  to  Cardinal 
Farnese,  p.  347. 

Borgia,  Francis,  duke  of  Gandia, 
S.  J.:  pp.  246-7 

Brebeuf,  S.  J.:  pp.  357-358. 

Broet,  Paschase,  S.  J.:  life,  p.  149; 
in  Ireland,  pp.  230-234;  dying 
declaration,  pp.  149;  vote,  p.  212. 

Buchanan,  George:  on  students  at 
Sainte  Barbe,  p.  98. 

Canisius:  on  Erasmus,  p.  70;  on 
Pierre  Lefevre,  p.  286;  on  the 
ideals  of  the  Society,  p.  350. 

Cano,  Melchior:  opposes  Jesuits  in 
Spain,  p.  248;  quarrel  with  Lainez, 
p.  265. 

Capuchins:  p.  302. 

Caraffa,  Gian  Pietro,  Cardinal  (Paul 
IV) :  at  odds  with  Loyola,  p.  166; 
letter  to,  from  Loyola,  p.  167 ;  life 
of,  p.  168;  and  Order  of  Teatini, 
p.  302;  and  Inquisition  in  Italy, 
p.  350. 


Charles  V :  pp.  57,  177 ;  and  Council 
of  Trent,  p.  253;  and  Wolsey,  p. 
298. 

Charter:  Chap.  XX,  p.  202. 
Cisneros:  his  Ejercitatorio,  p.  126. 
Coduri,  S.  J.:  life,  p.  150;  at  death 
of  Hoces,  p.  150;  his  death,  p.  150; 
vote,  p.  212. 

Coimbra:  eccentric  conduct  of 

students  there,  p.  236;  Loyola’s 
letter  to  them,  p.  240. 

Colonna,  Vittoria:  hears  of  Jesuits, 
p.  185;  inquires  about  them,  p. 
148;  her  poetry,  p.  303. 

Columbus:  p.  43. 

C onfraiernita  della  Carita:  p.  302, 
Constitution  of  Society:  pp.  216-222. 
Contarini,  Gaspar,  Cardinal;  on 
Spaniards,  p.  6;  and  Spiritual  Ex- 
ercises,  p.  188;  letter  to  say  that 
Charter  was  granted,  p.  204. 
Contarini,  Pietro  :  p.  166. 

Council  of  Trent:  Chap.  XXV,  p, 
253. 

Dissimulation  (?):  pp.  24,  346-347. 
Don  Quixote:  comparison  of  Loyola 
to,  p.  28. 

Doctis,  Gaspar  de:  in  Venice,  p. 

166;  in  Rome,  p.  195. 

Duprat,  Guillaume:  Bishop  of  Cler¬ 
mont,  p.  250. 

Eguia,  don  Diego:  pp.  165,  325. 
Eguia,  Don  Esteven,  p.  165. 
Ejercitatorio  E spiritual  of  Cisneros: 

p.  126. 

Erasmistas:  p.  67. 

Erasmus:  on  Turks,  p.  41;  fame, 
p.  66;  attacks  on,  p.  68;  Enchiri¬ 
dion,  p.  69. 

Ercole  d’Este,  duke  of  Ferrara: 
pp.  185,  205. 

First  Fathers;  see  Lefevre  et  al.; 
Journey  from  Paris  to  Venice,  p. 
179;  charitable  works  there,  p. 
180;  go  to  Rome,  p.  180;  see 
Paul  III,  p.  182;  ordination  of, 
p.  182;  mission  in  Venetia,  p.  183; 


395 


396 


INDEX 


in  Northern  Italy,  p.  183;  life  in 
Rome,  p.  189;  discuss  charter,  p. 
202;  vote  for  general,  p.  212; 
vows  at  St.  Paul’s,  p.  215. 

Foucauld,  Charles,  Pere:  quoted, 
pp.  361-363. 

France :  persecution  of  reformers, 
p.  139;  Jesuit  mission,  p.  250. 

Francis  I:  captive  in  Spain,  p.  64; 
and  heresy  in  France,  p.  141 ;  his 
politics  in  1536,  p.  177 ;  renews 
war  with  Charles  V,  p.  178;  and 
Council  of  Trent,  p.  254. 

Gaetano  di  Thiene:  p.  302. 

Gonzalez  de  Camara :  quoted,  pp. 
1,  42. 

Govea,  Diego  de:  principal  of 
Sainte-Barbe  college,  p.  101;  as 
to  missions  to  India,  p.  235. 

Guicciardini:  on  Spaniards,  p.  7. 

Guidiccioni,  Cardinal :  opposition 
to  charter,  p.  205. 

Guise,  Charles  de,  Cardinal  of  Lor¬ 
raine  :  makes  Loyola’s  acquaint¬ 
ance,  p.  250;  becomes  protector 
of  the  Society  in  France,  p.  250. 

Guizot:  on  Jesuits,  p.  ix. 

Henry  VIII:  p.  298. 

Hoces,  S.  J.:  beautiful  when  dead, 
p.  150;  hesitates  to  join  Ignatius, 
p.  165;  Loyola’s  vision  of  him, 
p.  189. 

Howell,  James:  on  Montserrat,  p. 
27 ;  on  Venice,  p.  162. 

Ignatius:  birth,  p.  1;  youth,  p.  1; 
youthful  follies,  p.  1 ;  adopted  by 
Don  Juan  Velazquez,  p.  2;  carni¬ 
val  escapade  and  judicial  proceed¬ 
ings,  p.  3;  takes  service  with  duke 
of  Najera,  p.  5;  military  career, 
p.  5;  Pamplona,  p.  13;  wounded, 
p.  14;  convalescence,  p.  15;  pious 
books,  p.  15;  sick  bed,  p.  18; 
thoughts  and  visions,  p.  22;  leaves 
home,  p.  24;  evasive  reply  to 
brother,  p.  24;  episode  of  Moor,  p. 
26;  Montserrat,  p.  26;  self-dedi¬ 
cation,  p.  27 ;  Manresa,  p.  31 ; 
visions  beside  river  Cardona,  p. 
35;  trance,  p.  36;  Spiritual  Exer¬ 
cises,  p.  37 ;  pilgrimage  to  Jerusa¬ 
lem,  p.  44;  Gaeta  to  Rome,  p.  45; 
Rome  to  Venice,  p.  46;  Venice, 
p.  46;  voyage  to  Jaffa,  p.  47; 
Jerusalem,  p.  47;  voyage  back,  p. 


50;  Venice  to  Barcelona,  p.  50; 
Reformation,  p.  58;  Renaissance, 
p.  59;  return  to  Barcelona,  p.  63; 
stay  there,  p.  64;  at  grammar 
school,  p.  64;  incident  with 
schoolmaster,  p.  64;  Erasmus’s 
book,  p.  69;  at  Alcala,  p.  71;  three 
temporary  disciples,  p.  71 ;  in¬ 
quisitors,  p.  72;  first  investigation, 
p.  73;  continuation,  p.  79;  third, 
p.  86;  judgment,  p.  89;  Sala¬ 
manca,  p.  90;  arrest  and  trial,  p. 
92;  judgment,  p.  93;  goes  to 
Paris,  p.  95;  Montaigu  College,  p. 
98;  incident  of  cheat,  p.  99;  tramp 
to  Rouen,  p.  100;  lodges  at  St. 
Jacques  Hospital,  p.  100;  Sainte- 
Barbe,  p.  101 ;  trouble  with  in¬ 
quisitor,  Dr.  Ori,  p.  102;  episode 
of  three  pious  students,  p.  102; 
legend  of  whipping,  p.  102;  profit 
derived  at  university,  p.  103; 
Lefevre,  p.  105;  Xavier,  p.  109; 
Lainez,  p.  101 ;  finds  fault  with 
Lainez,  p.  112;  humble  letter  from 
Lainez,  p.  113;  Salmeron,  p.  117; 
Rodriguez,  p.  119;  Bobadilla,  p. 
120;  Nadal,  p.  124;  Spiritual  Ex¬ 
ercises,  p.  125;  Reformation  in 
France,  p.  135;  referred  to  by 
Rabelais,  p.  140;  vow  at  Mont¬ 
martre,  p.  145;  bad  health,  p.  151; 
goes  to  Spain,  p.  151 ;  at  Azpeitia, 
p.  152;  ordinance  for  beggars,  p. 
153;  Xavier’s  letter  about  him, 
p.  156;  from  Azpeitia  to  Valencia, 
p.  158;  voyage  to  Italy,  p.  159; 
from  Genoa  to  Bologna,  p.  160; 
Venice  again,  p.  160;  letter  to 
Cazador,  p.  161 ;  Eguia  brothers, 
p.  165;  Hoces,  p.  105;  Pietro  Con- 
tarini,  p.  166;  de  Doctis,  p.  166; 
Caraffa,  p.  166;  letter  to  Caraffa, 
p.  167 ;  letters  of  spiritual  advice 
to  Theresa  Rezadella,  pp.  169-173; 
letter  to  Father  Miona,  p.  173; 
persecution  in  Venice,  p.  174; 
joined  by  First  Fathers,  p.  179; 
life  in  Venice,  p.  180;  mission  at 
Vicenza,  p.  183;  goes  to  Rodri¬ 
guez  when  latter  is  ill,  p.  184; 
spiritual  visions,  p.  186;  goes  to 
Rome,  p.  186;  preparation  for  first 
mass,  p.  186;  visions,  p.  186;  of 
Christ  at  Storta,  p.  187 ;  name  of 
Society  confirmed  thereby,  p.  187 ; 
arrival  in  Rome,  p.  188;  at  Monte 
Cassino,  p.  189;  vision  of  Hoces, 


INDEX 


397 


p.  189;  life  in  Rome,  p.  190;  as  a 
preacher,  p.  190;  dwellings  in 
Rome,  p.  190;  charitable  works, 
p.  191;  persecutions  in  Rome,  p. 
191 ;  Michael’s  letter,  p.  191 ; 
further  troubles,  p.  195;  acquittal, 
p.  195;  letter  to  Isabel  Roser,  p. 
196;  discussions  on  charter,  p.  202; 
verbal  approval  by  Paul  III,  p. 
204;  Contarini’s  letter,  p.  204; 
Ignatius  at  this  period,  p.  211.; 
election  as  general,  p.  213;  his 
hesitation,  p.  214;  acceptance,  p. 
214;  his  vow,  p.  215;  work  on 
constitution,  p.  216;  mission  for 
Portuguese  empire,  p.  235; 
troubles  at  Coimbra,  p.  236;  letter 
to  Fathers  there,  p.  240;  missions 
in  Spain,  p.  244;  sends  Araoz,  p. 
245;  letter  to  archbishop  of  To¬ 
ledo,  p.  248;  mission  in  France, 
p.  250;  makes  acquaintance  of 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  p.  250;  de¬ 
cree  of  Sorbonne,  p.  251 ;  his 
attitude,  p.  251 ;  mode  of  vin¬ 
dication,  p.  252;  Council  of  Trent, 
p.  253;  instructions  to  Lainez,  p. 
256;  letter  from  Lainez  about  ac¬ 
commodations,  p.  260;  mission  to 
India,  p.  267 ;  application  for  mis¬ 
sionaries,  p.  267 ;  notifies  Xavier 
that  he  is  to  go,  p.  267 ;  letter  to 
nephew  introducing  Xavier,  p. 
268;  Xavier’s  affection  for  Loyola, 
p.  276;  Xavier’s  letter  to  him, 
Jan.,  1552,  p.  277;  in  Rome,  Chap. 
XXIX,  p.  305;  correspondence,  p. 
306;  preaching,  p.  309;  charitable 
works,  p.  309;  colleges,  p.  310; 
Jews,  p.  310;  troubles  over  St. 
Martha’s  Home,  p.  311;  House 
for  Catechumens,  p.  311;  Isabel 
Roser  and  nephew,  p.  311;  So¬ 
ciety  released  from  care  of  women, 
p.  312;  home  life,  pp.  312-317; 
rules  for  garden,  p.  318;  household 
routine,  p.  319;  personal  habits, 
p.  320;  love  of  music,  p.  320; 
character,  Chap.  XXX,  p.  321 ; 
temper,  p.  322;  self-mastery,  p. 
323;  sternness,  p.  324;  tact,  p. 
326;  justice,  p.  326;  care  of  sick, 
p.  327;  spoke  no  evil,  p.  328;  pa¬ 
tience,  p.  328;  devotion  to  Society, 
p.  329;  holiness,  p.  329;  religious 
minded,  p.  330;  note  book,  p.  331; 
mystical  experiences,  p.  331 ; 
spiritual  reality,  p.  331 ;  prayer, 


p.  332;  devils,  p.  334;  humility, 
p.  335;  Bartoli’s  summing  up,  p. 
337;  kindness,  p.  339;  anecdotes 
of,  p.  339;  graciousness,  p.  340; 
prudence,  p.  341 ;  no  criticism  of 
Popes,  p.  341;  humour,  p.  343; 
anecdote  of,  Bobadilla’s  hypoc¬ 
risy,  p.  343;  as  to  fleas,  p.  343; 
Father  Barbaran,  p.  344;  falling 
shed,  p.  344;  considerateness,  p. 
345;  except  Nadal  et  al.,  p.  345; 
reputation  among  Protestants  for 
duplicity,  p.  346;  relations  to  In¬ 
quisition,  in  Spain,  p.  348;  in 
Portugal,  p.  349;  in  Italy,  p.  349; 
character  pictured,  p.  351 ;  on  serv¬ 
ice  to  God,  p.  352;  bad  health,  p. 
353;  last  illness,  p.  354;  death,  p. 
355;  failure  or  success?,  pp.  355- 
358;  his  doctrine  of  obedience,  p. 
359;  of  the  Eucharist,  p.  360; 
asceticism,  p.  360;  his  love  of 
holiness,  p.  366. 

Indulgences,  doctrine  of,  p.  54; 
abuse  of,  p.  55. 

Inquisition,  in  Spain,  p.  348;  in 
Portugal,  p.  349;  in  Italy,  p. 
349. 

Inquisitorial  investigations:  see 
Judicial  Proceedings. 

Ireland,  mission  to:  pp.  230-234. 

Italy:  Loyola’s  first  visit,  p.  45; 
missions  in,  pp.  224-229;  see 
Venice,  Rome,  etc. 

Jay,  Claude,  S.  J.  (Le  Jay,  Jajus) : 
life,  p.  146;  episode  at  Ferrara,  p. 
146;  at  Council  of  Trent,  p.  258. 

Jerusalem,  Loyola’s  pilgrimage  to: 
Chap.  V,  p.  47. 

Jesuits  (see  also  Society  of  Jesus, 
First  Fathers,  etc.) :  in  South 
America,  p.  ix;  in  the  United 
States,  p.  x;  vituperated,  p. 
xi. 

John  III,  King  of  Portugal;  applies 
for  missionaries,  p.  235. 

Judicial  proceedings:  at  Pamplona, 
p.  3;  at  Alcala,  p.  73;  at  Sala¬ 
manca,  p.  92;  at  Paris,  102;  at 
Venice,  p.  174;  at  Rome,  Michael 
et  al.,  p.  191 ;  over  St.  Martha’s 
Home,  etc.,  p.  311;  Dr.  Ferrer,  p. 
311. 

Lainez,  Diego,  S.  J.:  birth,  p.  101; 
letter  to  Loyola,  p.  113;  to  his 
mother,  p.  115;  on  Loyola,  p.  204; 


398 


INDEX 


on  missions  in  Italy,  pp.  226-228; 
goes  to  Trent,  p.  258;  letter  to 
Loyola  from  Trent,  p.  260;  quar¬ 
rel  with  Cano,  p.  265;  sternness 
of  Ignatius  towards,  p.  345;  Latin 
words  of  eulogy  on  Ignatius,  p. 
367. 

Lazarillo  de  Tormes:  quoted,  p.  55. 

Lefevre,  Pierre,  S.  J.  (Favre,  Faber) : 
boyhood  and  youth,  p.  105; 
at  Montmartre,  p.  145;  at 
Sapienza,  p.  189;  on  charter,  p. 
206;  letter  to  him  about  doings 
at  Coimbra,  p.  236;  fuller  account 
of  him,  Chap.  XXVII,  p.  283; 
tenderness  for  Germans,  p.  285; 
anecdotes  of  him  at  Cologne,  p. 
286;  his  piety,  p.  286;  imprisoned 
in  France,  p.  287;  visit  to  Spain, 
p.  287;  at  Alcala,  p.  288;  at  Barce¬ 
lona,  p.  288;  back  to  Germany, 
p.  289;  love  of  S.  J.,'p.  289;  letter 
to  French  cousin,  p.  290;  to  Portu¬ 
gal,  p.  291 ;  on  obedience,  p.  291 ; 
Spain  again,  p.  292;  Memoriale 
quoted,  p.  293;  counsels  to  Lainez, 
p.  294;  his  death,  p.  294. 

Lefevre  d’Etaples:  pp.  136-138. 

Leo  X:  pp.  57,  58. 

Loyola,  Ignatius:  see  Loyola. 

Loyola,  Martin  Garcia:  oldest  living 
brother,  p.  24. 

Loyola,  Pedro  Lopez :  elder  brother, 
p.  3. 

Ludolf  of  Saxony:  Life  of  Christ 
quoted,  p.  16. 

Luther:  challenges  indulgences,  p. 
56;  quoted,  p.  57;  his  writings  in 
Spain,  p.  58;  in  Paris,  pp.  137- 
138. 

Lutherans:  see  Protestants. 

Macaulay:  on  the  Jesuits,  p.  viii. 

Maigret:  quoted,  p.  137. 

Manresa:  Loyola  at,  p.  31. 

Margaret  of  Navarre  (Marguerite 
d’Angouleme,  etc.),  sister  of 
Francis  I:  at  Barcelona,  p.  65. 

Marot,  Clemont:  prosecuted,  p.  141; 
on  Venice,  p.  162. 

Menendez  y  Pelayo :  om  Loyola,  p. 
ix;  on  Spanish  heroism,  p.  29. 

Michelangelo:  p.  301;  poems  quoted, 
p.  304. 

Montaigu,  college  of:  p.  98. 

Montmartre:  vow  at,  p.  145. 

Montserrat,  mountain  and  monas¬ 
tery:  p.  26. 


Nadal,  S.  J.:  at  first  deaf  to  Loyola, 
124;  school  at  Messina,  p.  229. 

Najera,  duke  of'  takes  Loyola  into 
his  service,  p.  5. 

Oratory  of  Divine  Love:  p.  302. 

Ori,  Dr.  Matthew:  pp.  102,  195. 

Ortiz,  Dr.  Pedro:  friendly  in  Rome, 
p.  182;  at  Monte  Casino  with 
Loyola,  p.  188. 

Palmio  Benedetto,  S.  J.:  autobiog¬ 
raphy  quoted,  pp.  312-317. 

Pamplona:  attack  on,  p.  14. 

Paris:  Loyola  arrives  at,  p.  95;  de¬ 
scribed,  p.  96;  persecutions  in, 
pp.  139-141 ;  affair  of  placards,  p. 
141 ;  Jesuits  settled  there,  p.  250. 

Parkman,  Francis:  quoted,  p.  358. 

Pascual,  Ines:  pp.  31,  36,  95. 

Paul  III,  Alessandro  Farnese:  p. 
182;  receives  First  Fathers,  p.  182; 
approves  charter  verbally,  p.  204; 
final  approval,  p.  206;  and  Coun¬ 
cil  of  Trent,  p.  254;  as  a  reformer, 
p.  301 ;  and  Inquisition,  p.  349. 

Paul  IV:  see  Caraffa. 

Persecutions:  see  Judicial  proceed¬ 
ings. 

Placards,  affair  of:  p.  141. 

Polanco,  S.  J.:  quoted,  pp.  1,  354. 

Portugal:  mission  in,  Chap.  XX, 
p.  235. 

Proceedings:  see  Judicial  proceed¬ 
ings. 

Protestants:  p.  53;  first  books  of, 
in  Spain,  p.  58 ;  attitude  toward 
Council  of  Trent,  p.  254. 

Rabelais:  on  college  of  Montaigu, 
p.  98;  on  the  Sorbonne,  p.  138; 
on  Reform,  p.  140;  on  Ignatius, 
p.  140;  in  Rome,  p.  299. 

Ravenna:  episode  at,  p.  181. 

Reformation:  see  Protestants, 

Luther,  France,  etc.,  and  Chap. 
VI,  p.  52. 

Renaissance:  Chap.  VI,  p.  59. 

Renee,  duchess  of  Ferrara,  wife  of 
Ercole  d’Este:  pp.  162-163,  185. 

Ribadeneira,  Pedro  de,  S.  J.:  quoted, 
pp.  23,  36,  186;  goes  to  Paris,  p. 
250;  on  Loyola’s  preaching,  p.  308; 
anecdote  of  Loyola,  p.  325;  on 
his  character,  p.  351-352;  on  last 
illness,  354. 

Rodriguez,  Simon,  S.  J.:  on  Lefevre, 
p.  108;  introduced,  p.  119;  epi- 


INDEX  399 


sode  at  Ferrara,  p.  147;  at 
Ravenna,  p.  181 ;  ill  at  Bassano, 
p.  184;  at  Vicenza,  p.  184;  his 
vote,  p.  213;  in  Portugal,  p.  235; 
college  at  Coimbra,  p.  236; 
blamed,  p.  239;  his  defence,  p. 
239;  exiled  to  Venetia,  243; 
blames  Loyola,  p.  347. 

Rome:  Loyola's  first  visit,  p.  45; 
prior  to  sack  in  1527,  p.  59;  in 
Loyola’s  time,  Chap.  XXVIII,  p. 
295;  Loyola’s  charitable  works  in, 
p.  309. 

Rosebery,  Lord:  quoted,  p.  x,  p. 
323. 

Roser,  Isabel  (Rosel,  Rosell,  Isa¬ 
bella,  Elizabeth) :  p.  36 ;  assists 
Loyola  while  in  Venice,  p.  161; 
Loyola’s  letter  to  her,  1538,  p. 
196;  visited  by  Lefevre,  p.  288; 
goes  to  Rome,  p.  311;  Loyola’s 
troubles  with,  p.  311. 

Sainte-Barbe,  college  of:  p.  101. 

St.  Francis  of  Assisi:  on  obedience, 
p.  359. 

Salamanca:  Loyola  at,  pp.  90-94. 

Salmeron,  S.  J.:  introduced,  p.  117; 
at  Trent,  p.  117;  vote  for  Loyola, 
p.  118;  letter  to  Loyola  on  Boba- 
dilla,  p.  122;  in  Ireland,  pp.  230- 
234;  at  Council  of  Trent,  p.  258; 
letter  to  Loyola  about  Lainez,  p. 
260. 

Santa  Cruz,  Martin,  S.  J.:  p.  236. 

Society  of  Jesus:  see  also  Jesuits, 
at  time  of  Loyola’s  death,  p.  355; 
in  1912,  p.  355. 

Spain:  condition  of  in  Loyola’s 
youth,  p.  5;  stirring  events,  p.  11; 
Jesuit  missions,  p.  244. 

Spirits,  good  and  evil:  pp.  19-21. 

Spiritual  Exercises:  first  draft,  p. 
37;  Chap.  XII,  p.  125. 

Stewart  Rose,  Caroline  Erskine 
Lady  Buchan:  Life  of  Loyola,  p. 
xii. 


Tacchi  Venturi:  History  of  the  So¬ 
ciety  of  Jesus:  p.  xii. 

Teatini,  Order  of:  p.  302. 

Theresa,  Saint:  quoted,  p.  247. 

Thomas-a-Kempis:  p.  134. 

Thompson,  Francis:  Saint  Ignatius 
Loyola,  p.  xii. 

Titian:  in  Venice,  p.  163. 

Trent:  see  Council  of. 

Trials:  see  Judicial  proceedings. 

Turks:  aggressions  of,  p.  41;  cap¬ 
ture  Rhodes,  p.  46! 

Valdes,  Alfonso  de:  p.  68. 

Valdes,  Juan  de:  Dialog  o,  etc., 
quoted,  pp.  41,  68,  297. 

Vega,  Garcilaso  de  la:  p.  178. 

Velazquez,  Don  Juan  de:  adopts 
Ignatius,  p.  2. 

Venice:  Loyola’s  first  visit,  1523,  p. 
46;  described,  p.  161;  Titian's 
villa,  etc.,  p.  163. 

Vital,  Laurent:  on  Spaniards,  p.  8. 

Wolsey,  Cardinal:  intrigues  for 
papal  tiara,  p.  298. 

Xavier,  Francis,  S.  J.:  at  Sainte- 
Barbe,  p.  99;  birth  and  youth,  p. 
109;  meets  Loyola,  p.  110;  letter 
to  brother  about  Loyola,  p.  156; 
mission  to  India,  Chap.  XXVI,  p. 
267;  his  readiness  to  go,  p.  268; 
sails  from  Lisbon,  p.  269;  voyage, 
p.  270;  letter  to  comrades  in 
Rome,  p.  271 ;  extracts  from  let¬ 
ters,  pp.  275-276;  love  for  Loyola, 
p.  276;  letter  to  same,  p.  277; 
Oriental  ways  trouble  him,  p.  278; 
consolations,  p.  278;  tact,  p.  279; 
anecdote  of  pilot,  p.  280;  home¬ 
sick,  p.  281 ;  methods  of  con¬ 
version,  p.  281;  death,  p.  282; 
letters  serve  as  propaganda,  p. 

282. 


\ 


